
Class _z:z_^i;a£ 

Book _^ . 

GopyrightN? 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSrr 



LONGMANS' ENGLISH CLASSICS 



EDITED BY 



GEORGE RICE CARPENTER, A.B. 

FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND ENGLISH COMPOBITIOK 
IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 



LORD TENNYSON 



THE COMING OF ARTHUR 
THE HOLY GRAIL 

AND 

THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 



Longmans' ^nglisl) Clagstcg 

TENNYSON'S 

THE COMING OF ARTHUR 

THE HOLY GRAIL 

AND 

THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 

EDITED 

WITH NOTES AND AN INTRODUCTION 

BY 

SOPHIE CHANTAL HART, M.A. 

PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND COMPOSITION IN WELLESLEV COLLEQB 




LOXGMA]S^S, GREEX, AKD CO. 

FOURTH AVENUE & 30th STREET, NEW YORK 
PRAIRIE AVENUE & 2oth STREET, CHICAGO 

1915 






5?? 



Copyright, 1915, 

BT 

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 

All rights reserved 



O, vV^ 



nr.l -41915 
C^ci.A41l769 



k^/ 



CONTENTS 



Introduction 

I. Alfred Tennyson 
II. The Idylls . 

III. The Coming of Arthur 

IV. The Holy Grail 

V. The Passing op Arthur 
Idylls of the King, Dedication 
The Coming of Arthor 
The Holy Grail 
The Passing of Arthur 
To THE Queen 
Notes .... 



Vll 

xii 
xix 

XX 

xxiv 
3 
7 
27 
59 
77 
81 



INTRODUCTION 



I. ALFRED TENXYSON. 



Alfred Tennyson was born in 1809 at the rectory at 
Somersby, Lincolnshire, England. He was the fourth of 
twelve children, who grew up under the guidance of par- 
ents singularly high-minded and unworldly of temper and 
cultivated in their tastes. All through the years he re- 
tained the tenderest memories of the rectory — of " the 
Gothic vaulted dining-room, with stained-glass windows 
making ' butterfly souls ' on the walls ; of the woodbine that 
climbed into the bay window of his nursery; of the beau- 
tiful stone chimney-piece carved by his father; of the 
pleasant little drawing-room lined with bookshelves, and 
furnished with yellow curtains, sofas, and chairs, and 
looking out on the lawn." The children who grew up 
in these attractive surroundings were fond of imaginative 
ventures of all kinds ; at least three of them wrote 'Verse, 
and in their games they had jousts and tourneys, or de- 
lighted themselves in listening to Alfred's stories of knights 
and heroes among untravelled forests. When Charles 
Tennyson was between sixteen and eighteen and Alfred 
betw^een fifteen and seventeen, they wrote their first vol- 
ume, " Poems by Two Brothers," published in 1837 by a 
bookseller at Louth. During these formative years of 
youth, Alfred Tennyson led a very quiet life in the coun- 
try ; he was taught Greek and Latin by his father ; a well- 
trained scholar, and given free range of a library which 
had in it the standard classics. In his own family he had 



dii INTRODUCTION 

satisfying intellectual comradeship from his two elder 
brothers; and from his father he had the counsel and sym- 
pathy of a man of considerable learning and genial social 
charm. For a short time the brothers were away at school, 
but the best of their early education they acquired at the 
rectory. In the fields and woods about his home Alfred 
Tennyson came to love Nature, and to be a close and ex- 
act observer of her ways. The seclusion of the life at 
the rectory may have done something toward intensify- 
ing Tennyson's natural reserve, which remained with him 
to the end of his days. 

In 1828 the two brothers, Charles and Alfred Tenny- 
son, were matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge, 
where their elder brother Frederic had already made a 
name for himself by winning the University medal for the 
best Greek ode. At college the Tennysons fell in with a 
group of men who became distinguished later — Milnes 
(Lord Houghton); Merivale; Trench, afterward Arch- 
bishop of Dublin; Alford, afterward Dean of Canter- 
bury; Spedding, the biographer of Bacon; and, most sig- 
nificant of all friends, Arthur Hallam, the son of the great 
historian. This friendship with Arthur Hallam was one 
of the profound experiences of Tennyson's life. When 
Hallam, in the full promise of young manhood, died sud- 
denly in Vienna in 1833, it seemed as if the world were 
forever darkened for Tennyson. Out of the depths of his 
sorrow came the poem "In Memoriam," in which is re- 
corded the best part of the affection that bound the friends 
together. At Cambridge, Tennyson was well grounded in 
the classics; since Milton none of our English poets has 
"been so diligent a student and lover of classic poetry; he 
drew much of his inspiration in theme and in verse forma 
from it. The one honor which came to Tennyson in col- 
lege was the winning of the University prize (1839) by 



INTRODUCTION ix 

his poem in blank verse, " Timbuctoo." written at his 
father's earnest desire. It was noted at the time that 
this seemed to justify a remark made by Thompson, after- 
wards the Master of Trinity, when Tennyson first entered 
the Hall, " That man must be a poet." There was some- 
thing always striking in his persona? appearance. In his 
Cambridge days he is described as " six feet high, broad- 
chested, strong limbed; his face Shakespearian, with deep 
eyelids ; his forehead ample, crowned with dark wavy hair ; 
his hands the admiration of sculptors, long fingers with 
square tips, soft as a child's, but of great size and strength. 
What struck me most about him was the union of strength 
with refinement." His friend Spedding once protested: 
" It is not fair, Alfred, that you should be Hercules as 
well as Apollo." He could hurl crowbars farther than 
any of his companions, and is said to have surprised his 
friends one day by picking up a pony and carrying it across 
the lawn. This splendid physical vigor of his young man- 
hood he kept unimpaired to the end, great bodily force ever 
supporting great intellectual force. 

Tennyson's next volume, " Poems Chiefly Lyrical," came 
out in 1830, when English poetry was at its lowest ebb. 
Byron, Shelley, and Keats were dead; Wordsworth's best 
work was done. The great Murray had ceased to pub- 
lish poetry. There were some favorable reviews of this 
new volume, but in general the criticisms were so dras- 
tic that Tennyson was fairly stung into silence for ten 
years. Tennyson's own estimate of the poems is indi- 
cated by the fact that only twentj^-three of the fifty-six 
poems appeared in his later collected works. The years 
following 1830 were full of trial. In 1833 came Arthur 
Hallam's death. Tennyson had little means; he was com- 
pelled to work for a public apparently hostile and un- 
appreciative ; he could not even hope to marry the woman 



X INTRODUCTION 

he wished to make his wife until he could earn from this 
same public a sufficient income to support her. In spite 
of so much that was thwarting, he bent himself with char- 
acteristic energy to perfecting his art ; " he was making 
himsel' a' the time " ; writing and rewriting and correct- 
ing until he was ready to publish the volumes that brought 
him recognition and the beginning of fame. The poems 
published in the 1842 volumes showed in their variety of 
interests the deepening and maturing of the poet's own 
life. Cordial words of tribute came to Tennyson from 
many sources; in America we find Hawthorne, Margaret 
Fuller, Edgar Allan Poe, and Emerson full of praise. 
Carlyle's letter to Tennyson apropos of the 1842 vol- 
umes is a striking expression of the general feeling — strik- 
ing, because Carlyle had always urged Tennyson to give 
up poetry for prose; and though Carlyle was no compe- 
tent critic of poetry, his response to the richer human 
note which these poems sounded is significant : " Truly 
it is long since in any English book, poetry or prose, I 
have felt the pulse of a real man's heart as I do in this 
same. A right valiant, true-fighting, victorious heart; 
strong as a lion's, yet gentle, loving, and full of music; 
what I call a genuine singer's heart." 

From this time on, the record of Tennyson's life is one 
of ever-growing success. In 1845 he received a pension 
of £200 from the Crown; in 1847 he published "The 
Princess " ; and in 1850, a memorable year, he married 
Emily Sellwood, was made poet laureate, and published 
" In Memoriam.'' He and his young wife on their wed- 
ding tour visited, among other places, the King Arthur 
country, Glastonbury, one of the island valleys of Avilion, 
" set in apple blossoms." Later they established them- 
selves at Farringford, on the Isle of Wight, where Ten- 
nyson lived an active outdoor life and wrote incessantly 



INTRODUCTION xi 

lyrics, idylls, and dramas. The years until his death in 
1892 were full of productivity in verse; quiet happiness 
in family life with his wife and two sons, Hallam and 
Lionel; and keen interest in the political and scientific 
issues of his day. His enthusiasm for science is note- 
worthy; science he felt would enrich poetr}', would be the 
source ultimately of new poetic inspiration. In his circle 
of friends were Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, and Lord Kel- 
vin; men of affairs like the Duke of Argyll and Mr. Glad- 
stone; writers like Mr. and Mrs. Browning, Thackeray, 
Dickens, Carlyle, Edward Fitzgerald, and Jowett. In 
frequent visits to London, at the Metaphysical Society, 
he came in close contact with the men of speculative tem- 
per who were shaping the current of English thought in 
philosophy and in social reform. In spite of his reserve, 
Tennyson seems to have had a positive genius for friend- 
ship. The picture of his life at Farringford with his 
children, his ever-coming guests, his long walks over the 
downs, is one of singular simplicity and beauty. At vary- 
ing intervals he published new poems : " Maud and Other 
Poems" in 1855; four "Idylls of the King" in 1859; 
"Enoch Arden" in 1864; "Queen Mary," "Harold," 
and other dramas, all having their basis in English his- 
tory, from 1875 to 1884; " Tiresias and Other Poems" 
in 1885; " Locksley Hall Sixty Years After" in 1886; 
" Demeter and Other Poems " in 1889. Honors came 
rapidly to him, now the foremost literary man of the age. 
He was made a D.C.L. of the University of Oxford, a 
Fellow of the Eoyal Society, Honorary Fellow of Trinity 
College, Cambridge, and in 1884 he was created a peer 
under the title taken from his two estates. Baron Tenny- 
son of Aldworth and Farringford. In Westminster Ab- 
bey he lies buried, next his friend and brother poet, Eob- 
ert Browning, in front of Chaucer's monument. 



xii INTRODUCTION 

II. THE IDYLLS. 

Publication. — From the beginning of his career Ten- 
nyson was, as he tells us, haunted by the greatest of all 
poetical subjects. King Arthur. Back in 1832, in his early 
published volume, appeared " The Lady of Shalott,"' a 
poem which prefigures the idyll of " Lancelot and 
Elaine." In the same volume were two short lyrical 
poems, " Sir Galahad " and " Sir Launcelot and Queen 
Guinevere." In the 1842 volumes " Morte d' Arthur" 
stands out with peculiar interest for us, since it was 
taken, almost without change, to form " The Passing of 
Arthur." In 1859 were published under the title of 
" The True and the False," four idylls, " Enid," " Vivien," 
" Elaine," and " Guinevere." In another decade, 1869, 
there followed "The Coming of Arthur," "The Holy 
Grail," " Pellcas and Ettarre," and " The Passing of Ar- 
thur." After three years, in 1872, " The Last Tourna- 
ment " and " Gareth and Lynette " appeared, and finally, 
in 1885, " Balin and Balan." The dates are more sig- 
nificant than dates of publication usually are. They show 
what is almost a phenomenon in literary production, that 
for half a century Tennyson held in thought the plan of 
a great epic which he developed in twelve separate parts. 
The " Idylls of the King," therefore, gather together all 
the strands of experience in the poet's life — his youthful 
vision, his manhood's clearer survey, and the ripe wisdom 
of old age. The selections in this volume are representa- 
tive of the three periods. 

A dominant artistic purpose seems slowly to have shaped 
itself in the poet's mind; to subordinate the idylls to this 
in a dramatic sequence Tennyson had to add new idylls 
from time to time to make the necessary linking. Thus 
it happens that " The Passing of Arthur," which comes 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

last, was written in substance first ; that " Gareth and 
Lynette/' which was among the latest written, appears at 
the beginning of the cj^cle. As Dr. Van Dyke tersely 
expresses it : " That a great poet should be engaged with 
his largest theme for more than half a century ; that he 
should touch it first with a lyric ; then with an epical frag- 
ment and three more lyrics; then with four romantic 
idylls, followed, ten years later, by four others, and two 
years later by two others, and thirteen years later by yet 
another idyll, which is to be placed not before or after the 
rest, but in the very centre of the cycle; that he should 
begin with the end, and continue with the beginning, and 
end with the middle of the stor}^, and produce at last a 
poem which certainly has more epical grandeur and com- 
pleteness than anything that has been made in English 
since Milton died, is a thing so marvellous that no man 
would credit it save at the sword's point of fact. And 
yet this is an exact record of Tennyson's dealing with the 
Arthurian legend." 

Theme. — It is obviously pertinent to ask why the theme. 
King Arthur, should dominate the thought of England's 
great poet for half a century. In the old mediaeval stories 
King Arthur stands for the godlike man, as a kind of 
dream or hope of what manhood might attain should it 
ever reach its ideal. This was the view taken by Joseph of 
Exeter in the twelfth century, who says : " The old world 
knows not his peer, nor will the future show us his equal : 
he alone towers over other kings." And in " The Brut ab 
Arthur " we read : " In short, God has not made since 
Adam was, the man more perfect than Arthur." It was 
natural that Tennyson, the passionate lover of the ideal, 
in attempting to express the aspiration of the spirit to- 
ward perfection in our modern life, should turn to Arthur, 
the stainless knight. In the poem at the close of the 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

"Idylls" addressed "To the Queen/' Tennyson phrases his 
central conception : - 

" Accept this old imperfect tale, 
New-old, and shadowing Sense at war with Soul, 
Ideal manhood closed in real man, 
Rather than that gray king whose name, a ghost, 
Streams like a cloud, man-shaped, from mountain peak. 
And cleaves to cairn and cromlech still ; or him 
Of Geoffrey's book, or him of Malleor's." 

There is, then, obviously, behind the " Idylls " an allegory 
centring in Arthur, whose name symbolizes the struggle 
toward the higher life. 

Though Tennyson chose Arthur because tradition linked 
him with interests akin to the poet's, the allegory follows 
only remotely, at a distance, and must not be pressed if one 
would get from the " Idylls " the purest quality of their 
poetry. Poetry is not, like an exposition, a set of definite 
facts to be grasped as facts. It is rather a mood of spir- 
itual receptivity, in which thoughts, suggestions, hints of 
things beyond the words, flow in upon tlie imagination 
and quicken it to a new perception of truth. He who 
would ruthlessly seize from poetr}^ a definite set of syl- 
logisms must, in the very act. lose all the finer essence of 
poetry. So, in reading the " Idylls," one should come 
with a heart open to the magic and the mystery, and be 
content to apprehend tlie shadowy forms of things that he 
but half divines. This is hy no means an argument for 
vague and desultory reading, but rather a plea for read- 
ing in the spirit in which the creative artist wrought 
greater things than he knew; it calls for an intensity and 
self-identification of reader with poet as the initial and 
necessary step toward reaching his fuller meaning. He 



INTRODUCTION XV 

may "be sure of ricli reward who reads " The Idylls of the 
King " not as history, nor as modern version of ancient 
legend, nor as allegory of the struggle of man toward 
perfection, but as poetry holding these separate interests 
fused into one pattern, as threads inwoven in a splendid 
tapestry. In the sensuous imagery, which is the natural 
medium of poetry, will glint myriad meanings of things 
not to be narrowly defined. Tennyson himself makes 
earnest protest against a too literal interpretation of his 
symbolism. " When he was asked once whether the three 
queens who accompanied King Arthur on his last voy- 
age were Faith, Hope, and Charity, he answered : ' They 
mean that and they do not. They are three of the noblest 
of women. They are also three Graces, but they are much 
more. I hate to be tied down to say. This means that, 
because the thought within the image is much more than 
any one interpretation.' " 

Sources. — " The vision of Arthur had come upon me/* 
writes Tennyson, " when, little more than a boy, I first 
lighted upon Malory." Malory's " Morte d' Arthur'* 
should be the companion book of every one who reads 
the " Idylls." Of Sir Thomas Malory we know scarcely 
anything except what is gleaned from his book: his name 
is mentioned three times with different spelling, Malorye, 
Malory, and Maieor; he tells us that, in the ninth year 
of the reign of Edward the Fourth, in 1469, he " compiled 
the booke oute of certaine bookes of Frensshe, and re- 
duced it into Englysshe." It was printed sixteen years 
later by Caxton, the father of English printing. From 
Malory and from Geoffrey of Monmouth's old Latin his- 
tory of Britain (written about 1132-1135) Tennyson drew 
most of his material. Eight years after Geoffrey's his- 
tory was written it was translated into Norman French by 
Robert Wace, who, in his " Le Roman du Brut/' added 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

the story of the Eound Table. The Arthurian tales, with 
various modifications, soon spread over all Europe; in 
France, in Germany, in Ital}', down even to the court of 
Sicily, we find trouveres or minstrels carrying the legend- 
ary story by word of mouth and weaving about it many 
new elements. There grew up five separate cycles which 
gradually merged into one: 1, Arthur, Guinevere, and 
Merlin; 2, The Eound Table; 3, Launcelot; 4, The Holy 
Grail; 5, Tristram. 

Cretien de Troyes, in France, and Wolfram von Eschen- 
bach, in Germany, are among those who helj^ed to make 
the deeds of the Eound Table famous in the poetry and 
song of the Middle Ages. Never have heroes been more 
passionately loved by all classes of people than King Ar- 
thur and his kniglits. Whether there was a real King 
Arthur, an historic person, matters little. It is a subject 
of too great dispute to enter into here. Those who hold 
there was a real King Arthur place him in the sixth cen- 
tury, as leader of the Celtic tribes against Saxon invaders, 
and affirm that he met his death in the battle of Badon 
Hill, near Bath, in 520. This king, however, is but a 
shadow to the King Arthur of chivalrous tales. 

It has occurred to many, as it did to Euskin, to ask 
why Tennyson should choose, as the particular medium 
for expressing his reflection and thought on the life of 
his day, the medigeval romances of Arthur's Eound Table. 
As far back as 1832, in the " Morte d' Arthur," Tennyson 
anticipates the objection 

" That a truth 
Looks freshest in the fashions of the day." 

Even then there was some critic at his elbow to remind 
him, 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

"Why take the st3'le of those heroic times? 
For nature brings not back the mastodon, 
ISTor we those times ; and why should any man 
Eemodel models?" 

Tennyson's instinct was, perhaps, wiser than his critics. 
There is no period in the world's history which is so suf- 
fused with associations of what is noble and strong and 
pure as the days of the Eound Table. The very mention 
of the names of the knights, patterns of courtesy and 
prowess, sets vibrating' ancient memories. Tennyson 
felt that material so pregnant with heantj, so strong in 
its appeal to the sensibilities of generations of men, would 
best succeed in doing what it is the function of poetry to 
do, to carry truth " alive into the heart by passion." He 
was not concerned vrith remodelling models; but rather 
with using the overtones of old music to enrich his new 
song. 

Sometimes critics lose sight of the fact that there is 
this new element in Tennyson's version of the old tales, 
or else in their short-sightedness censure Tennyson for 
introducing it. It sliould be borne in mind that every 
poet who is not a mere translator, writes poetry because 
he has some thought to give to his generation. Poetry 
is not a trick of collocating pretty sounds, or a mode of 
gay and elegant trifling. Like prose, it is a medium for 
expressing man's deepest insight and understanding of 
the forces of life, as they have been revealed to him in 
his day ; only poetry expresses them in a heightened, more 
significant, more pleasurable form. Full recognition 
must be given to the truth that Tennyson's poetry, aim- 
ing to be a criticism of life, infuses into the mediaeval 
romances something which the older writers could not 
put there, something which the modern poet cannot escape 



xviu INTRODUCTION 

from putting there. Their material he uses in subservi- 
ence to a new organizing principle,, to a new spiritual 
import. In Arthur, the king whose perfect work was de- 
stroyed by the sin that crept in among his followers, we 
have a reflex of the spiritual struggle of this age in an- 
cient setting, with the fuller complexity of motive and 
passion which the nineteenth century has brought into 
being. It was Tennyson's conviction that his message 
gained immeasurably in coming to us through material 
so time-mellowed. 

Tee Poetic Form. — The idyll is commonly defined as 
a short poem descriptive of some picturesque incident or 
scene, chiefly in rustic life. This limitation to rustic life 
is not inlierent, for the idyll may include legends of gods, 
passages of personal experience, and town life. In that 
there is a narrator the idyll is like an epic. It is essential, 
hoAvever, that the scenic background, which in the idyll 
must always be a conspicuous element, shall not be merely 
decorative, but shall vitally interpret and give color to 
the feeling that constitutes the centre of the poem. An 
edition of Theocritus which came out in Tennyson's col- 
lege days, and which he read with rapture, may have 
turned his attention to the idyll as a poetic form. Mil- 
ton and Shelley had tried it, but with no success. Ten- 
nyson's first attempts were modelled on the classical idyll; 
these were followed by idylls of English life. Early in 
his career, Tennyson with acuteness observed : "If I mean 
to make my mark at all, it must be by shortness." Eealiz- 
ing that the age for epics had forever gone, he wrote short 
idylls, each building up "The Idylls of the King" to- 
ward an epic unity. The idylls of English life are freer 
and simpler in metre than the heroic blank verse of " The 
Idylls of the King." The prevailing measure is, of conrse, 
iambic, but there are many variations in the use of feet 



INTRODUCTION xxv 

the standard of rebellion and proclaimed himself king. 
Keturning from the JSTorth to punish Modred, Arthur has 
had his last meeting with the repentant queen, given in 
the idyll inmiediately before this. Small wonder is it that 
on this march westward against Modred the world seems 
dark and confused to the king; trusted friend and wife 
have been untrue ; the Kound Table is dissolved by the sin 
that has crept in among the knights. External nature is 
harmonized with the mood of the saddened king, for whom 
a blind haze, 

'"ever since I saw 
One lying in the dust at Almesbury, 
Hath folded in the passes of the world." 

The account of the great battle is given with a largeness 
and mystery which intensify the sense of desolation. 
Friend kills friend or foe, not knowing whom he strikes, 
until at the close of the day the king is left alone with 
Bedivere, wounded mortally in the last combat with 
Modred. The scene which has Excalibur for its centre 
is built on the model of the old romances, where the hero 
always takes farewell of the charmed weapon that has 
made him able to work his will. Tennyson follows Malory 
very closely here. The whole id3-ll is more archaic than 
the others in form and diction, even to the ending with 
the mystic barge and the queens bearing Arthur away 
to the shadowy world. Yet in spite of this it has some 
very human and real touches. No one can read the self- 
accusation of the king, his cry of despair at leaving his 
work unfulfilled, his pain at the confusion which pre- 
vails where shining order once had reigned, without feeling 
the vitality of Tennyson's conception of the man Arthur. 
It is attained here as nowhere else in the "Idvlls." 



SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHEES 

No more delightful material could be put into the hands 
of young students than the Idylls selected for this 
volume. It behooves the teacher to re-create with as much 
vivid detail as possible the old days of chivalry and knight- 
hood and adventure which most young people naturally 
enjoy. Given this background, the teacher can carry the 
class through these old-time medieval stories in their new 
poetic form with a kindling pleasure. As an element in 
personal culture, no period in literature makes stronger 
claim. If the teacher will briefly tell the class something 
about the custom of holding tournaments and jousts, and 
the search for the Holy Grail, it will be possible, perhaps, 
to enlist the student's interest to make some personal in- 
vestigation for himself. 

Most important of all, the teacher should help the 
student to read the verse aloud, in such a way as to bring 
out its melody and meaning at the same time. Tenny- 
son's verse in a very special sense is meant to be read 
aloud, if one would get the best effect of it, for Tenny- 
son had a rarely sensitive ear, and spared no pains to 
make the singing quality of his verse full and sweet. Pas- 
sages may be assigned for memorizing, that the student 
may have occasion to dwell longer on the verse and be 
trained to reproduce it with appropriate inflection. There 
can be no better test than this of his understanding of 
what he reads, of his power of imaginative re-creation of 
the experience. 

Since it is an essential part of the idyll that the cen- 



xxviii SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS 

tral feeling of the poem shall be interpreted through images 
drawn from nature; in other words, that there shall be 
a richly concrete setting, it is obviously pertinent to have 
the student note carefully what imagery the poet has 
drawn from nature; with what aspects of nature he seems 
sijecially familiar; what passages show particularly the 
fineness and delicacy of his observation. A close study 
of such detail will reveal to the student a thousand new 
apprehensions of beautiful things in the world about him. 
Tennyson helps us to see almost as much as Euskin helps 
to lift the scales from our eyes in looking at nature. Ten- 
nyson was a passionate lover of out-of-doors, and, fortu- 
nate beyond most men, he spent a good part of his time 
in the fields and by the sea. It will profit the student to 
trace as minutely as possible the influence of this out- 
door life as it is manifested in these poems. 

The following books will be helpful to the teacher to- 
ward building up that fuller background of knowledge 
and suggestion which the teacher should bring to the class 
to quicken intellectual curiosity. 

" Alfred, Lord Tennyson." A Memoir by his Son. 

" Eecords of Tennyson, Browning, and Euskin," by 
Anne Thackeray Eitchie. 

" Tennyson." English Men of Letters Series. 

" Le Morte d' Arthur," by Malory, edited with an intro- 
duction by Sir E. Strachey. [Globe edition. Macmillan.] 

" Six Old English Chronicles," containing Nennius's 
" History of the Britons," Geoffrey of Monmouth's " Brit- 
ish History." [Bohn Library.] 

" Arthur and the Eound Table," chiefly after the French 
of Chretien de Troves, by W. W. Newell. 

" Poetry of Tennyson," by H. Van Dyke. 

" Tennyson, His Art in Eelation to Modern Life," by 
S. A. Brooke, 



SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS xxix 

"Essays on Lord Tennyson's 'Idylls of the King/ " by 
H. Littledale. 

"Handbook of Tennyson's Works," by Morton Luce. 

"Studies in the Legend of the Holy Grail," by Alfred 
Nutt. 

"The Legend of Sir Gawain," by Jessie Weston, 

"The Growth of tlie Idylls of the King," by Eichard 
Jones. 

"Tennyson's Idylls of the King and Arthurian Story 
from the Sixteenth Century," by M. W. Maccallum. 

"The Study of the 'Idylls of the King,'" by H. A. 
Davidson (to be obtained by addressing The Study Guide 
Series, Cambridge, Mass.), is an invaluable book for con- 
stant use in daily class-room work. The present editor is 
deeply indebted to this excellent little pamphlet. 

The Abbey paintings of the Holy Grail series in the 
Boston Public Library are reproduced by The Copley 
Prints Company, Boston, j\Iass, They bear specifically on 
these three idylls on The Holy Grail. The student's at- 
tention may well be called to this most recent use of the 
Arthurian story. 



XXX 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

[See Ryland's Chronological Outlines of English Literature, and Whitcomb'a 
Chronological Outlines of American Literature.'] 



The Life of Tennyson. 


Contemporary Literary History. 


1809. 


Born at Somersby. 


1809. 

1821. 

1824. 


Mrs. Browning, Holmes, Poe, 

win born. 
Keats died. 
Byron died. 


Dar. 


1827. 


Poems by Tivo Brothers. 








1828. 


Matriculated at Trinity College, 
Cambridge. 


1828. 


Rossetti born. 




1830. 


Poems Chiefly Lyrical. 












1831. 


Whittier, Legends of New England. 


1832. 


Poems 


18;S3. 


Scott died. 




1833. 


Deatli of Arthur Hallam. 


1833. 


Robert Browning's Pauline. 




184-2. 


Poems. 


1843. 


Wordsworth, Poet Laureate. 




1845. 


Pension given by the Crown. 








1847. 


The Princess. 












1848. 


Matthew Arnold, The Strayed 
eller and other Poems. 


Eev- 


1850. 


Poet Laureate. In ]We?no7'ia?H. 
Married to Emily Selhvood. 


1850. 


Wordsworth died. 




1853. 


Takes up residence at Farringford. 








1855. 


Maud and other Poems. D. C. L., 
from Oxford. 


1858. 


George Eliot's Scenes frmn CU 

Life. 
Darwin's Origin of Species. 


rical 


1859. 


Four Idylls of the King. 


1859. 


Ma- 








caulay, De Quiucey, Irving died. 






1863. 


Thaciieray died. 




1869. 


The Holy Grail and other Poems. 


1870. 


Dickens died. 




1873. 


Gareth and Lynette, and The Last 
Tournament. 








1875. 


Quee7i Mary. 








187T. 


Harold. 








1879. 


The Lover's Tale. The Falcon, 
acted at St. James's Theatre. 








1881. 


The Cup, acted at the Lyceum 
Theatre. 


1681. 


Carlyle and G«orge Eliot died. 




1883. 


The Promise of May, acted at the 
Globe Theatre. 


1882. 


Darwin, Rossetti, Longfellow, 
erson died. 


Em- 


1885. 


Tiresias and other Poems. 








1886. 


Locksley Hall Sixty Years After. 


1888. 


Matthew Arnold died. 




1889. 


Demeter and other Poems. 


1889. 


Robert Browning died. 




1892. 


Death of Tennyson at Aldworth. 


1892. 


Whittier died. 





IDYLLS OF THE KING 
DEDICATION 



IDYLLS OF THE KING 

DEDICATION 
Flos Regum Arthurus. — Joseph of Exeter 

Tpiese to His Memory — since he held them dear, 
Perchance as finding there unconsciously 
Some image of himself — I dedicate. 
I dedicate, I consecrate with tears — 
These Idylls. 

And indeed He seems to me 5 

Scarce other than my king's ideal knight, 
"Who reverenced his conscience as his king; 
Whose glory was, redressing human wrong ; 
Who spake no slander, no, nor listen'd to it ; 
Who loved one only and who clave to her — " 10 

Her — over all whose realms to their last isle. 
Commingled with the gloom of imminent war. 
The shadow of His loss drew like eclipse, 
Darkening the world. We have lost him : he is gone : 
We know him now : all narrow jealousies 15 

Are silent ; and we see him as he moved, 
How modest, kindly, all-accomplish'd, wise. 
With what sublime repression of himself. 
And in what limits, and how tenderly ; 
Not swaying to this faction or to that; 20 

Not making his higli place the lawless perch 
Of wing'd ambitions, nor a vantage-ground 
For pleasure ; but thro' all this tract of years 

3 



,4 DEDICATION 

Wearing the white flower of a blameless life, 

Before a thousand peering littlenesses, 25 

In that fierce light which beats upon a throne. 

And blackens every blot : for where is he. 

Who dares foreshadow for an only son 

A lovelier life, a more unstain'd than his ? 

Or how should England dreaming of his sons 30 

Hope more for these than some inheritance 

Of such a life, a heart, a mind as thine. 

Thou noble Father of her Kings to be. 

Laborious for her people and her poor — 

Voice in the rich dawn of an ampler day — 35 

Far-sighted summoner of War and Waste 

To fruitful strifes and rivalries of peace — 

Sweet nature gilded by the gracious gleam 

Of letters, dear to Science, dear to Art, 

Dear to thy land and ours, a Prince indeed, 40 

Beyond all titles, and a household name. 

Hereafter, thro' all times, Albert the Good. 

Break not, woman's-heart, but still endure; 
Break not, for thou art Eoyal, but endure, 
Eemembering all the beauty of that star 45 

Which shone so close beside Thee that ye made 
One light together, but has past and leaves 
The Crown a lonely splendor. 

May all love, 
His love, unseen but felt, o'ershadow Thee, 
The love of all Thy sons encompass Thee, 50 

The love of all Thy daughters cherish Thee, 
The love of all Thy people comfort Thee, 
Till God's love set Thee at his side again ! 



THE COMING OF ARTHUR 



THE COMING OF ARTHUR 

Leodograx^ the King of Cameliard, 
Had one fair daughter, and none other child ; 
And she was fairest of all flesh on earth, 
Guinevere, and in her his one delight. 

For many a petty king ere Arthur came 5 

Euled in this isle, and ever waging war 
Each upon other, wasted all the land ; 
And still from time to time the heathen host 
Swarm'd overseas, and harried what was left. 
And so there grew great tracts of wilderness, 10 

Wherein the beast was ever more and more. 
But man was less and less, till Arthur came. 
For first Aurelius lived and fought and died. 
And after him King Uther fought and died. 
But either fail'd to make the kingdom one. 15 

And after these King Arthur for a space. 
And thro' the puissance of his Table Eound, 
Drew all their petty princedoms under him, 
Their king and head, and made a realm, and reign'd. 

And thus the land of Cameliard was waste, 20 

Thick with wet woods, and many a beast therein. 
And none or few to scare or chase the beast; 
So that wild dog, and wolf and boar and bear 
Came night and day, and rooted in the fields. 
And wallow'd in the gardens of the King, 25 



8 THE COMING OF ARTHUR 

And ever and anon the wolf would steal 

The children and devour, but now and then. 

Her own brood lost or dead, lent her first teat 

To human sucklings ; and the children, housed 

In her foul den, there at their meat would growl, 30 

And mock their foster-mother on four feet, 

Till, straighten'd, they grew uj) to wolf -like men, 

Worse than the wolves. And King Leodogran 

Groan'd for the Eoman legions here again. 

And Caesar's eagle : then his brother king, 35 

Urien, assail'd him : last a heathen horde, 

Eeddening the sun with smoke and earth with blood. 

And on the spike that split the mother's heart 

Spitting the child, brake on him, till, amazed. 

He knew not whither he should turn for aid, 40 

But — for he heard of Arthur newly crown'd, 
Tho' not without an uproar made by those 
Who cried, "He is not Uther's son'" — the King 
Sent to him, saying, "Arise, and help us thou ! 
Por here between the man and beast we die." 4.^ 

And Arthur yet had done no deed of arms. 
But heard the call, and came : and Guinevere 
Stood by the castle walls to watch him pass ; 
But since he neither wore on helm or shield 
The golden symbol of his kinglihood, 50 

But rode a simple knight among his knights. 
And many of these in richer arms than he. 
She saw him not, or mark'd not, if she saw. 
One among many, tho' his face was bare. 
But Arthur, looking downward as he past, 65 

Pelt the light of her eyes into his life 
Smite on the sudden, yet rode on, and pitch'd 



THE COMING OF ARTHUR 9 

His tents beside the forest. Then he drave 

The heathen; after, slew the beast, and feli'd 

The forest, letting in the sun, and made 60 

Broad pathways for the hunter and the knight 

And so return'd. 

For while he linger'd there, 
A doubt that ever smoulder'd in the hearts 
Of those great Lords and Barons of his realm 
Flash'd forth and into war : for most of these, 65 

Colleaguing with a score of petty kings, 
Made head against him, crying, "Who is he 
That he should rule us? who hath proven him 
King Uther's son ? for lo ! we look at him. 
And find nor face nor bearing, limbs nor voice, 70 

Are like to those of Uther whom we knew. 
This is the son of Gorlois, not the King; 
This is the son of Anton, not the King." 

And Arthur, passing thence to battle, felt 
Travail, and throes and agonies of the life, 75 

Desiring to be join'd with Guinevere ; 
And thinking as he rode, "Her father said 
That there between the man and beast they die. 
Shall I not lift her from this land of beasts 
Up to my throne, and side by side with me ? 80 

What happiness to reign a lonely king, 
Vext — ye stars that shudder over me, 

earth that soundest hollow under me, 

Vext with waste dreams? for saving I be join'd 

To her that is the fairest under heaven, 85 

1 seem as nothing in the mighty world. 
And cannot will my will, nor work my work 
Wholly, nor make myself in mine own realm 



10 THE COMING OF ARTHUR 

Victor and lord. But were I join'd with her. 

Then might we live together as one life, 90 

And reigning with one will in everything 

Have power on this dark land to lighten it. 

And jDower on this dead world to make it live." 

Thereafter — as he sj^eaks who tells the tale — 
When Arthur reach'd a field-of -battle bright 95 

With pitch'd pavilions of his foe, the world 
Was all so clear about him, that he saw 
The smallest rock far on the faintest hill. 
And even in high day the morning star. 
So when the King had set his banner broad, 100 

At once from either side, with trumpet-blast. 
And shouts, and clarions shrilling unto blood. 
The long-lanced bat;tle let their horses run. 
And now the Barons and the kings prevail'd, 
And now the King, as here and there that war 105 

Went swaying; but the Powers who walk the world 
Made lightnings and great thunders over him. 
And dazed all eyes, till Arthur by main might. 
And mightier of his hands with every blow. 
And leading all his knighthood threw the kings 110 

Carados, Urien, Cradlemont of Wales, 
Claudius, and Clariance of Northumberland, 
The King Brandagoras of Latangor, 
With Anguisant of Erin, Morganore, 
And Lot of Orkney. Then, before a voice 115 

As dreadful as the shout of one who sees 
To one who sins, and deems himself alone 
And all he world asleep, they swerved and brake 
Flying, and Arthur call'd to stay the brands 
That hack'd among the flyers, "Ho ! they yield !" 130 

So like a painted battle the war stood 



THE COMING OF ARTHUR 11 

Silenced, the living quiet as the dead, 

And in the heart of Artliur joy was lord. 

He laugird upon his warrior whom he loved 

And honor "d most. "Thou dost not doubt me King, 125 

So well thine arm hath wrought for me to-day." 

"Sir and my liege," he cried, "the fire of God 

Descends upon thee in the battle-field : 

I know thee for my King !" Whereat the two, 

Tor each had warded either in the fight, 130 

Sware on the field of death a deathless love. 

And Arthur said, "Man's word is God in man : 

Let chance what will, I trust thee to the death." 

Then Cjuickly from the foughten field he sent 
TJlfius, and Brastias, and Bedivere, 135 

His new-made knights, to King Leodogran, 
Saying, "If I in aught have served thee well, 
Give me thy daughter Guinevere to wife." 

Whom when he heard, Leodogran in heart 
Debating — "How should I that am a king, 140 

However much he holp me at my need. 
Give my one daughter saving to a king. 
And a king's son ?" — lifted his voice, and call'd 
A hoary man, his chamberlain, to whom 
He trusted all things, and of him required 145 

His counsel : "Knowest thou aught of Arthur's birth ?" 

Then spake the hoary chamberlain and said, 
"Sir King, there be but two old men that know : 
And each is twice as old as I ; and one 
Is Merlin, the wise man that ever served 150 

King Uther thro' his magic art ; and one 
Is ^Merlin's master (so they call him) Bleys, 



12 THE COMING GF ARTHUR 

Who taught him magic; but the scholar ran 

Before the master, and so far, that Bleys 

Laid magic by, and sat him do\yn, and wrote 155 

All things and whatsoever Merlin did 

In one great annal-book, where after-years 

Will learn the secret of our Arthur's birth/' 

To whom the King Leodogran replied, 
"0 friend, had I been holpen half as well 160 

By this King Arthur as by thee to-day. 
Then beast and man had had their share of me : 
But summon here before us yet once more 
Ulfius, and Brastias, and Bedivere.'' 

Then, wnen tney came before him, the King said, 165 
"I have seen the cuckoo chased by lesser fowl. 
And reason in the chase : but wherefore now 
Do these your lords stir up the heat of war. 
Some calling Arthur born of Gorlois, 

Others of Anton? Tell me, ye yourselves, 170 

Hold ye this Arthur for King Uther's son?" 

And Ulfius and Brastias answer'd, "Ay." 
Then Bedivere, the first of all his knights 
Knighted by Arthur at his crowning, spake — 
For bold in heart and act and word was he, 175 

Whenever slander breathed against the King — 

"Sir, there be many rumors on this head : 
For there be those who hate him in their hearts. 
Call him baseborn, and since his ways are sweet. 
And theirs are bestial, hold him less than man : 180 

And there be those who deem him more than man, 
And dream he dropt from heaven : but my belief 



THE COMING OF ARTHUR 13 

In all this matter^ — so je care to learn — 

Sir, for ye know that in King Uther's time 

The prince and warrior Gorlois, he that held 185 

Tintagil castle by the Cornish sea, 

Was wedded with a winsome wife, Ygerne : 

And daughters had she borne him, — one whereof, 

Lot's wife, the Queen of Orkney, Bellicent, 

Hath ever like a loyal sister cleaved 190 

To Arthur, — but a son she had not borne. 

And Uther cast upon her eyes of love : 

But she, a stainless wife to Gorloi's, 

So loatlied the bright dishonor of his love. 

That Gorlois and King Uther went to war : 195 

And overthrown was Gorlois and slain. 

Then Uther in his wrath and heat besieged 

Ygerne within Tintagil, where her men. 

Seeing the mighty swarm about their walls. 

Left her and fled, and Uther enter'd in, 200 

And there was none to call to but himself. 

So, compass'd by the power of the King, 

Enforced she was to wed him in her tears, 

And with a shameful swiftness : afterward, 

Not many moons, King Uther died himself, 205 

Moaning and wailing for an heir to rule 

After him, lest the realm should go to wrack. 

And that same night, the night of the new year, 

By reason of the bitterness and grief 

That vext his mother, all before his time 210 

"Was Arthur born, and all as soon as born 

Deliver'd at a secret postern-gate 

To Merlin, to be holden far apart 

Until his hour should come ; because the lords 

Of that fierce day were as the lords of this, 215 

Wild beasts, and surely would have torn the child 



14 THE COMING OF ARTHUR 

Piecemeal among them, had they known • for each 

But sought to rule for his own self and hand, 

And many hated Uther for the sake 

Of Gorlois. Wherefore Merlin took the child, 220 

And gave him to Sir Anton, an old knight 

An ancient friend of Uther; and his wife 

Nursed the young prince, and rear'd him with her own ; 

And no man knew. And ever since the lords 

Have foughten like wild beasts among themselves, 225 

So that the realm has gone to wrack : but now. 

This year, when Merlin (for his hour had come) 

Brought Arthur forth, and set him in the hall. 

Proclaiming, 'Here is Uther's heir, your king,' 

A hundred voices cried, 'Away with him ! 230 

No king of ours ! a son of Gorloi's he. 

Or else the child of Anton, and no king. 

Or else baseborn.' Yet Merlin thro' his craft, 

And while the people clamor'd for a king. 

Had Arthur crown'd ; but after, the great lords 235 

Banded, and so brake out in open war." 

Then while the King debated with himself 
If Arthur were the child of shamefulness. 
Or born the son of GorloYs, after death. 
Or Uther's son, and born before his time, 240 

Or whether there were truth in anything 
Said by these three, there came to Cameliard, 
With Gawain and young Modred, her two sons. 
Lot's wife, the Queen of Orkney, Bellicent ; 
Whom as he could, not as he would, the King 245 

Made feast for, saying, as they sat at meat, 

"A doubtful throne is ice on summer seas. 
Ye come from Arthur's court. Victor his men 



THE COMING OF ARTHUR 15 

Eeport him ! Yea, but ye — think ye this king — 

So many those that hate him, and so strong, 250 

So few his knights, however brave they be — 

Hath body enow to hold his foemen down?" 

"0 King," she cried, "and I will tell thee : few, 
Few, but all brave, all of one mind with him; 
For I was near him when the savage yells 255 

Of Uther's peerage died, and Arthur sat 
Crown'd on the dais, and his warriors cried, 
'Be thou the king, and we will work thy will 
Who love thee.' Then the King in low deep tones. 
And simple words of great authority, 260 

Bound them by so strait vows to his own self. 
That when they rose, knighted from kneeling, some 
Were pale as at the passing of a ghost, 
Some flush'd, and others dazed, as one who wakes 
Half-blinded at the coming of a light. 265 

"But when he spake and cheer'd his Table Round 
With large, divine, and comfortable words. 
Beyond my tongue to tell thee — I beheld ^ 

From eye to eye thro' all their Order flash 
A momentary likeness of the King: 270 

And ere it left their faces, thro' the cross 
And those around it and the Crucified, 
Down from the casement over Arthur, smote 
Flame-color, vert and azure, in three rays. 
One falling upon each of three fair queens, 275 

Who stood in silence near his throne, the friends 
Of Arthur, gazing on him, tall, with bright 
Sweet faces, who will help him at his need. 

"And there I saw mage Merlin, whose vast wit 



16 THE COMING OF ARTHUR 

And liundred winters are but as the hands 280 

Of loyal vassals toiling for their liege. 

"And near him stood the Lady of the Lake, 
Who knows a subtler magic than his own — 
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful. 
She gave the King his huge cross-hilted sword, 285 

Whereby to drive the heathen out: a mist 
Of incense curl'd about her, and her face 
Wellnigh was hidden in the minster gloom ; 
But there was heard among the holy hymns 
A voice as of the waters, for she dwells 290 

Down in a deep; calm, whatsoever storms 
May shake the world, and when the surface rolls. 
Hath power to walk the waters like our Lord. 

"There likewise I beheld Excalibur 
Before him at his crowning borne, the sword 295 

That rose from out the bosom of the lake. 
And Arthur row'd across and took it — rich 
With jewels, elfin Urim, on tlie hilt. 
Bewildering heart and eye — the blade so bright 
That men are blinded by it — on one side, 300 

Graven in the oldest tongue of all this world, 
'Take me,' but turn the blade and ye shall see, 
And written in the speech ye speak yourself, 
'Cast me away !' And sad was Arthur's face 
Taking it, but old Merlin counsell'd him, 305 

'Take thou and strike ! the time to cast away 
Is yet far-off.' So this great brand the king 
Took, and by this will beat his foemen down." 

Thereat Leodogran rejoiced, but thought 
To sift his doubtings to the last, and ask'd, 310 



THE COMING OF ARTHUR 17 

Fixing full eyes of question on her face, 

"The swallow and the swift are near akin, 

But thou art closer to this noble prince, 

Being his own dear sister"; and she said, 

"Daughter of Gorlois and Ygerne am I"; 315 

"And therefore Arthurs sister?"' ask'd the King. 

She answer'd, "These be secret things," and signed 

To those two sons to pass and let them be. 

And Gawain went, and breaking into song 

Sprang out, and follow'd by his flying hair 320 

Ban like a colt, and leapt at all he saw : 

But Modred laid his ear beside the doors. 

And there half-heard ; the same that afterward 

Struck for the throne, and striking found his doom. 

And then the Queen made answer, "What know I ? 325 
For dark my mother was in eyes and hair, 
And dark in hair and eyes am I ; and dark 
Was Gorloi's, yea and dark was Uther too, 
Wellnigh to blackness ; but this King is fair 
Beyond the race of Britons and of men. 330 

Moreover, always in my mind I hear 
A cry from out the dawning of my life, 
A mother weeping, and I hear her say, 
■^0 that ye had some brother, pretty one. 
To guard thee on the rough ways of the world.' " 335 

"Ay," said the King, "and hear ye such a cry? 
But when did Arthur chance upon thee first ?" 

"0 King !" she cried, ''and I will tell thee true : 
He found me first when yet a little maid : 
Beaten I had been for a little fault 340 

Whereof I was not guilty ; and out I ran 



18 THE COMING OF ARTHUR 

And flung myself down on a bank of heath. 

And hated this fair world and all therein, 

And wept, and wisli'd that I were dead ; and he — 

I know not whether of himself he came, 345 

Or brought by Merlin, who, they say, can walk 

Unseen at pleasure — he was at my side, 

And spake sweet words, and comforted my heart, 

And dried my tears, being a child with me. 

And many a time he came, and evermore 350 

As I grew greater grew with me ; and sad 

At times he seem'd, and sad with him was I, 

Stern too at times, and then I loved liim not, 

But sweet again, and then I loved him well. 

And now of late I see him less and less, 355 

But those first days had golden hours for me, 

For then I surely thought he would be king. 

"But let me tell thee now another tale : 
For Bleys, our Merlin's master, as they say. 
Died but of late, and sent his cry to me, 360 

To hear him speak before he left his life. 
Shrunk like a fairy changeling lay the mage ; 
And when I enter'd told me that himself 
And Merlin ever served about the King, 
ITther, before he died ; and on the night 365 

When Uther in Tintagil past away 
Moaning and wailing for an heir, the two 
Left the still King, and passing forth to breathe, 
Then from the castle gateway by the chasm 
Descending thro' the dismal night — a night 370 

In which the bounds of heaven and earth were lost — 
Beheld, so high upon the dreary deeps 
It seem'd in heaven, a ship, the shape thereof 
A dragon wing'd, and all from stem to stern 



THE COMING OF ARTHUR 19 

Bright with a shining people on the decks, 375 

And gone as soon as seen. And then the two 

Dropt to the cove, and watch'd the great sea fall. 

Wave after wave, each mightier than the last. 

Till last, a ninth one, gathering half the deep 

And full of voices, slowly rose and plunged 380 

Eoaring, and all the wave was in a flame : 

And down the wave and in the flame was borne 

A naked babe, and rode to Merlin's feet. 

Who stooj^t and caught the babe, and cried 'The King ! 

Here is an heir for Uther !' And the fringe 385 

Of that great breaker, sweeping up the strand, 

Lash'd at the wizard as he spake the word. 

And all at once all round him rose in fire. 

So that the child and he were clothed in fire. 

And presently thereafter follow'd calm, 390 

Free sky and stars : 'And this same child,' he said, 

'Is he who reigns ; nor could I part in peace 

Till this were told.' And saying this the seer 

Went thro' the strait and dreadful pass of death, 

Not ever to be question'd any more 395 

Save on the further side ; but when I met 

Merlin, and ask'd him if these things were truth — 

The shining dragon and the naked child 

Descending in the glory of the seas — 

He laugh'd as is his wont, and answer'd me 400 

In riddling triplets of old time, and said: 

" 'Eain, rain, and sun ! a rainbow in the sky ! 
A young man will be wiser by and by ; 
An old man's wit may wander ere he die. 

" 'Eain, rain, and sun ! a rainbow on the lea ! 405 

And truth is this to me. and that to thee ; 



20 THE COMING OF ARTHUR 

And truth or clothed or naked let it be. 

" 'Eain, sun, and rain ! and the free blossom blows : 
Sun, rain, and sun ! and where is he who knows ? 
From the great deep to the great deep he goes.' 410 

"So Merlin riddling anger'd me; but thou 
Fear not to give this King thine only child, 
Guinevere : so great bards of him will sing 
Hereafter; and dark sayings from of old 
Eanging and ringing thro' the minds of men, 415 

And echo'd by old folk beside their fires 
For comfort after their wage-work is done. 
Speak of the King ; and Merlin in our time 
Hath spoken also, not in jest, and sworn 
Tho' men may wound him that he will not die, 420 

But pass, again to come ; and then or now 
Utterly smite the heathen underfoot. 
Till these and all men hail him for their king." 

She spake and King Leodogran rejoiced. 
But musing "Shall I answer yea or nay ?" 425 

Doubted, and drowsed, nodded and slept, and saw, 
Dreaming, a slope of land that ever grew. 
Field after field, up to a height, the peak 
Haze-hidden, and thereon a phantom king. 
Now looming, and now lost ; and on the slope 430 

The sword rose, the hind fell, the herd was driven, 
Fire glimpsed ; and all tlie land from roof and rick. 
In drifts of smoke before a rolling wind, 
Stream'd to the peak, and mingled with the haze 
And made it thicker ; while the phantom king 435 

Sent out at times a voice ; and here or there 
Stood one who pointed toward the voice, the rest 



THE COMING OF ARTHUR 21 

Slew on and burnt, crying, "Xo king of ours, 

No son of Uther, and no king of ours" ; 

Till with a wink his dream was changed, the haze 440 

Descended, and the solid earth became 

As nothing, but the King stood out in heaven, 

Crown'd. And Leodogran awoke, and sent 

Ulfius, and Brastias and Bedivere, 

Back to the court of Arthur answering yea. 445 

Then Arthur charged his warrior whom he loved 
And honor'd most. Sir Lancelot, to ride forth 
And bring the Queen ; — and watch'd him from the gates : 
And Lancelot past away among the flowers, 
(For then was latter April) and return'd 450 

Among the flowers, in May, with Guinevere. 
To whom arrived, by Dubric the high saint. 
Chief of the church in Britain, and before 
The stateliest of her altar-shrines, the King 
That morn was married, while in stainless white, 455 

The fair beginners of a nobler time. 
And glorying in their vows and him, his knights 
Stood round him, and rejoicing in his joy. 
Far shone the fields of May thro' open door, 
The sacred altar blossom'd white with May, 460 

The Sun of May descended on their King, 
They gazed on all earth's beauty in their Queen, 
Eoird incense, and there past along the hymns 
A voice as of the waters, while the two 
Sware at the shrine of Christ a deathless love : 465 

And Arthur said, "Behold, thy doom is mine. 
Let chance what will, I love thee to the death !" 
To whom the Queen replied with drooping eyes, 
"King and my lord, I love thee to the death !" 
And holy Dubric spread his hands and spake, 470 



22 THE COMING OF ARTHUR 

*'Eeign ye, and live and love, and make the world 
Other, and may thy Queen be one with thee. 
And all this Order of thy Table i-iound 
Fulfil the boundless purpose of their King !" 

So Dubric said; but when they left the shrine 475 

Great Lords from Eome before the portal stood. 
In scornful stillness gazing as they past ; 
Then while they paced a city all on fire 
With sun and cloth of gold, the trumpets blew. 
And Arthur's knighthood sang before the King : — 480 

"Blow trumpet, for the world is white with May ; 
Blow trumpet, the long night hath roll'd away ! 
Blow thro' the living world — 'Let the King reign.' 

"Shall Eome or Heathen rule in Arthur's realm? 
Flash brand and lance, fall battleaxe upon helm, 485 

Fall battleaxe, and flash brand ! Let the King reign. 

"Strike for the King and live ! his knights have heard 
That God hath told the King a secret word. 
Fall battleaxe, and flash brand ! Let the King reign. 

"Blow trumpet ! he will lift us from the dust. 490 

Blow trumpet ! live the strength and die the lust ! 
Clang battleaxe, and clash brand ! Let the King reign. 

"Strike for the King and die ! and if thou diest. 
The King is King, and ever wills the highest. 
Clang battleaxe, and clash brand ! Let the King reign. 495 

"Blow, for our Sun is mighty in his May ! 
Blow, for our Sun is mightier day by day ! 



THE COMING OF ARTHUR 23 

Clang battleaxe, and clash brand ! Let the King reign. 

"The King will follow Christ, and we the King 
In whom high God hath breathed a secret thing. 500 

Fall battleaxe, and flash brand ! Let the King reign." 

So sang the knighthood, moving to their hall. 
There at the banquet those great Lords from Rome. 
The slow-fading mistress of the world. 
Strode in, and claim'd their tribute as of yore. 505 

But Arthur spake, "Behold, for these have sworn 
To wage my wars, and worship me their King ; 
The old order changeth, yielding place to new ; 
And we that fight for our fair father Christ, 
Seeing that ye be grown too weak and old 510 

To drive the heathen from 3^our Roman wall, 
No tribute will we pay" : so those great lords 
Drew back in wrath, and Arthur strove with Rome. 

And Arthur and his knighthood for a space 
Were all one will, and thro' that strength the King 515 

Drew in the petty princedoms under him. 
Fought, and in twelve great battles overcame 
The heathen hordes, and made a realm and reign'd. 



THE HOLY GRAIL 



THE HOLY GRAIL 

From noiseful arms, and acts of prowess done 

In tournament or tilt, Sir Percivale, 

Whom Arthur and his knighthood call'd The Pure, 

Had pass'd into the silent life of prayer, 

Praise, fast, and alms; and leaving for the cowl 5 

The helmet in an abbey far away 

From Camelot, there, and not long after, died. 

And one, a fellow-monk among the rest, 
Ambrosius, loved him much beyond the rest, 
And honor'd him, and wrought into his heart 10 

A way by love that waken'd love within, 
To answer that which came; and as they sat 
Beneath a world-old yew-tree, darkening half 
The cloisters, on a gustful April morn 
That puff'd the swaying branches into smoke 15 

Above them, ere the summer when he died. 
The monk Ambrosius question'd Percivale : 

"0 brother, I have seen this yew-tree smoke. 
Spring after spring, for half a hundred years : 
For never have I known the world without, 20 

ISTor ever stray'd beyond the pale : but thee. 
When first thou earnest — such a courtesy 
Spake thro' the limbs and in the voice — I knew 
For one of those who eat in xA.rthur's hall ; 
For good ye are and bad, and like to coins, 25 

27 



28 THE HOLY GRAIL 

Some true, some light, but every one of jou 
Stamp'd witli the image of the Xing ; and now 
Tell me, what drove thee from the Table Round, 
My brother ? was it earthly passion crost ?" 

"Nay/' said the knight ; "for no such passion mine 30 
But the sweet vision of the Holy Grail 
Drove me from all vainglories, rivalries, 
And earthly heats that spring and sparkle out 
Among us in the jousts, while women watch 
Who wins, who falls ; and waste the spiritual strength 35 
Within us, better offer'd up to Heaven." 

To whom the monk : "The Holy Grail ! — I trust 
We are green in Heaven's eyes ; but here too much 
We moulder — as to things without I mean — 
Yet one of your own knights, a guest of ours, 40 

Told us of this in our refectory. 
But spake with such a sadness and so low 
We heard not half of what he said. What is it ? 
The phantom of a cup that comes and goes ?" 

"Nay, monk ! what phantom ?" answer'd Percivale. 45 
"The cup, the cup itself, from which our Lord 
Drank at the last sad supper with his own. 
This, from the blessed land of Aromat — 
After the day of darkness, when the dead 
Went wandering o'er Moriah — the good saint 50 

Arimathfpan Joseph, journeying brought 
To Glastonbury, where the winter thorn 
Blossoms at Christmas, mindful of our Lord. 
And there awhile it bode ; and if a man 
Could touch or see it, he was heal'd at once, 55 

By faith, of all his ills. But then the times 



THE HOLY GRAIL 29 

Grew to such evil that the holy cup 

Was caught away to Heaven, and disappear'd." 

To whom the monk : "From our old books I know 
That Joseph came of old to Glastonbury, 60 

And there the heathen Prince, Arviragus, 
Gave him an isle of marsh whereon to build; 
And there he built with wattles from the marsh 
A little lonely church in days of yore. 
For so they say, these books of ours, but seem 65 

Mute of this miracle, far as I have read. 
But who first saw the holy thing to-day?" 

"A woman," answer'd Percivale, "a nun, 
And one no further off in blood from me 
Than sister ; and if ever holy maid 70 

With knees of adoration wore the stone, 
A holy maid ; tho' never maiden glow'd. 
But that was in her earlier maidenhood. 
With such a fervent flame of human love. 
Which being rudely blunted, glanced and shot 75 

Only to holy things ; to prayer and praise 
She gave herself, to fast and alms. And yet, 
Nun as she was, the scandal of the Court, 
Sin against Arthur and the Table Round, 
And the strange sound of an adulterous race, 80 

Across the iron grating of her cell 
Beat, and she pray'd and fasted all the more. 

And he to whom she told her sins, or what 
Her all but utter whiteness held for sin, 
A man wellnigh a hundred winters old, 85 

Spake often with her of the Holy Grail, 
A legend handed down thro' five or six, 



30 THE HOLY GRAIL 

And each of these a hundred winters old, 

From our Lord's time. And when King Arthur made 

His Table Eound, and all men's hearts became 90 

Clean for a season, surely he had thought 

That now the Holy Grail would come again ; 

But sin broke out. Ah, Christ, that it would come. 

And heal the world of all their wickedness ! 

'0 Father !' ask'd the maiden, 'might it come 95 

To me by prayer and fasting ?' 'jSTay,' said he, 

'I know not, for thy heart is pure as snow.' 

And so she pray'd and fasted, till the sun 

Shone, and the wind Ijlew, thro' her, and I thought 

She might have risen and floated when I saw her. 100 

"For on a day she sent to speak with me. 
And when she came to speak, behold her eyes 
Beyond my knowing of them, beautiful. 
Beyond all knowing of them, wonderful, 
Beautiful in the light of holiness. 105 

And '0 my brother Percivale' she said, 
'Sweet brother, I have seen the Holy Grail: 
For, waked at dead of night, I heard a sound 
As of a silver horn from o'er the hills 

Blown, and I thought, "It is not Arthur's use 110 

To hunt by moonlight" ; and the slender sound 
As from a distance beyond distance grew 
Coming upon me— never harp nor horn. 
Nor aught we blow with breath, or touch with hand, 
Was like that music as it came; and then 115 

Stream'd thro' my cell a cold and silver beam, 
And down the long beam stole the Holy Grail, 
Eose-red with beatings in it, as if alive. 
Till all the white walls of my cell were dyed 
With rosy colors leaping on the wall ; 120 



THB HOLY GRAIL 31 

And then the music faded, and the Grail 

Past, and tlie beam decay'd, and from the walls 

The rosy quiverings died into the night. 

So now the Holy Thing is here agam 

Among us, brother, fast thou too and pray, 135 

And tell thy brother knights to fast and pra}'', 

That so perchance the vision may be seen 

By thee and those, and all the world be heal'd.' 

"Then leaving the pale nun, I spake of this 
To all men ; and myself fasted and pray'd 130 

Always, and many among us many a week 
Fasted and pray'd even to the uttermost, 
Expectant of the wonder that would be. 

"And one there was among us, ever moved 
Among us in white armor, Galahad. 135 

'God make thee good as thou art beautiful,' 
Said Arthur, when he dubb'd him knight ; and none, 
In so young youth, was ever made a knight 
Till Galahad; and this Galahad, when he heard 
My sister's vision, fill'd n>e with amaze ; 140 

His eyes became so like her own, they seem'd 
Hers, and himself her brother more than I. 

"Sister or brother none had he ; but some 
Call'd him a son of Lancelot, and some said 
Begotten by enchantment — chatterers they, 1-45 

Like birds of passage piping up and down, 
That gape for flies — we know not whence they come ; 
For when was Lancelot wanderingly lewd? 

"But she, the wan sweet maiden, shore away 
Clean from her forehead all that wealth of hair 150 



32 THE HOLY GRAIL ' 

Which made a silken mat-work for her feet ; 

And out of this she plaited broad and long 

A strong sword-belt, and wove with silver thread 

And crimson in the belt a strange device, 

A crimson grail within a silver beam ; 155 

And saw the bright boy-knight, and bound it on him, 

Saying, 'My knight, my love, my knight of heaven, 

thou, my love, whose love is one with mine, 

I, maiden, round thee, maiden, bind my belt. 

Go forth, for thou shalt see what I have seen, 160 

And break thro' all, till one will crown thee king 

Far in the spiritual city' : and as she spake 

She s.ent her deathless passion in her eyes 

Thro' him, and made him hers, and laid her mind 

On him, and he believed in her belief. 165 

"Then came a year of miracle : brother, 
In our great hall there stood a vacant chair, 
Fashion'd by Merlin ere he past away, 
And carven with strange figures ; and in and out 
The figures, like a serpent, ran a scroll 170 

Of letters in a tongue no man could read. 
And Merlin call'd it 'The Siege perilous.' 
Perilous for good and ill ; 'for there,' he said, 
''No man could sit but he should lose liimself.' 
And once by misadvertence Merlin sat 175 

In his own chair, and so was lost ; but he, 
Galahad, when he heard of Merlin's doom, 
Cried, 'If I lose myself, I save my&elf !' 

"Then on a summer night it came to pass, 
While the great banquet lay along the hall, 180 

That Galahad would sit down in Merlin's chair. 



THE HOLY GRAIL 33 

"And all at once, as there we sat, we heard 
A cracking and a riving of the root's, 
And rending, and a blast, and overhead 
Thunder, and in the thunder was a cry. 185 

And in the blast there smote along the hall 
A beam of light seven times more clear than day : 
And down the long beam stole the Holy Grail 
All over cover'd with a luminous cloud. 
And none might see who bare it, and it past. 1!J0 

But every knight beheld his fellow's face 
As in a glory, and all the knights arose 
And staring each at other like dumb men 
Stood, till I found a voice and sware a vow. 

"I sware a vow before them all, that I, 195 

Because I had not seen the Grail, would ride 
A twelvemonth and a day in quest of it. 
Until I found and saw it, as the nun 
My sister saw it ; and Galahad sware the vow, 
And good Sir Bors, our Lancelot's cousin, sware, 200 

And Lancelot sware, and many among the knights. 
And Gawain sware, and louder than the rest." 

The spake the monk Ambrosius, asking him, 
""Tiat said the King ? Did Arthur take the vow ?'^ 

"Nay, for my lord," said Percivale, "the King, 205 

Was noL in hall: for early that same day, 
'Scaped thro' a cavern from a bandit hold. 
An outraged maiden sprang into the hall 
Crying on help : for all her shining hair 
Was smear'd with earth, and either milky arm 210 

Eed-rent with hooks of bramble, and all she wore 
Torn as a sail that leaves the rope is torn 



34 THE HOLY GRAIL 

In tempest : so the King arose and went 

To smoke the scandalous hive of those wild bees 

That made such honey in his realm. Howbeit 215 

Some little of this marvel he too saw, 

Returning o'er the plain that then began 

To darken under Camelot; whence the King 

Look'd up, calling aloud, 'Lo, there ! the roofs 

Of our great hall are roll'd in thunder-smoke ! 220 

Pray Heaven, they be not smitten by the bolt/" 

For dear to Arthur was that hall of ours. 

As having there so oft with all his knights 

Feasted, and as the stateliest under heaven. 

"0 brother, had you known our mighty hall, 2J:5 

Which Merlin built for Arthur long ago ! 
For all the sacred mount of Camelot, 
And all the dim rich city, roof by roof. 
Tower after tower, spire beyond spire. 
By grove, and garden-lawn, and rushing brook, 230 

Climbs to the mighty hall that Merlin built. 
And four great zones of sculpture, set betwixt 
■ With many a mystic symbol, gird the hall : 
And in the lowest beasts are slaying men. 
And in the second men are slaying beasts, 235 

And on the third are warriors, perfect men, 
And on the fourth are men with growing wings, 
And over all one statue in the mould 
Of Arthur, made by Merlin, with a crown. 
And peak'd wings pointed to the Northern Star. 240 

And eastward fronts the statue, and the crown 
And both the wings are made of gold, and flame 
At sunrise till the people in far fields, 
Wasted so often by the heathen hordes, 
Behold it, crying, 'We have still a King.' 245 



THE HOLY GRAIL 35 

"And, brother, had you known our hall within. 
Broader and luglier than any in all the lands ! 
Where twelve great windows blazon Arthurs wars. 
And all the light that falls upon the board 
Streams thro' the twelve great battles of our King. 250 
Nay, one there is, and at the eastern end, 
Wealthy with wandering lines of mount and mere, 
Wliere Arthur finds the brand Excalibur. 
And also one to the west, and counter to it, 
And blank : and who shall blazon it ? when and how ? — 
there, perchance, when all our wars are done, 255 

The brand Excalibur will be cast away. 

"So to this hall full quickly rode the King, 
In horror lest the work by Merlin wrought, 
Dreamlike, should on tlie sudden vanish, wrapt 260 

In unremorseful folds of rolling fire. 
And in he rode, and up I glanced, and saw 
The golden dragon sparkling over all : 
And many of those who burnt the hold, their arms 
Hack'd, and their foreheads grimed with smoke, and sear'd, 
Follow'd, and in among bright faces, ours, 2G5 

Full of the vision, prest : and then the King 
Spake to me, being nearest, 'Percivale,' 
(Because the hall w^as all in tumult — some 
Yowdng, and some protesting), "what is this?' 270 

"0 brother, wdien I told him what had chanced, 
My sister's vision, and the rest, his face 
Darken'd, as I have seen it more than once, 
When some brave deed seem'd to be done in vain, 
Darken ; and 'Woe is me, my knights,' he cried, 275 

■^Had I been here, ye had not sworn the vow.' 
Bold was mine answer, 'Had thyself been here, 



36 THE HOLY GRAIL 

My King, thou wouldst have sworn.' 'Yea, Yea,' said he, 
'Art thou so bold and hast not seen the Grail?' 

" 'Nay, lord, I heard the sound, I saw the light, 280 

But since I did not see the Holy Thing, 
I sware a vow to follow it till I saw.' 

"Then when he ask'd us, knight by knight, if any 
Had seen it, all their answers were as one : 
'Nay, lord, and therefore have we sworn our vows.' 285 

" 'Lo now,' said Arthur, 'have ye seen a cloud ? 
What go ye into the wilderness to see T 

"Then Galahad on the sudden, and in a voice 
Shrilling along the hall to Arthur, call'd, 
'But I, Sir Arthur, saw the Holy Grail, 290 

I saw the- Holy Grail and heard a cry — 
"0 Galahad, and Galahad, follow me." ' 

" 'Ah, Galahad, Galahad,' said the King, 'for such 
As thou art is the vision, not for these. 
Thy holy nun and thou have seen a sign — 295 

Holier is none, my Percivale, than she — 
A sign to maim this Order which I made. 
But ye, that follow but the leader's bell' 
(Brother, the King was hard upon his knights) 
'Taliessin is our fullest throat of song, 300 

And one hath sung and all the dumb will sing. 
Lancelot is Lancelot, and hath overborne 
Five kights at once, and every younger knight, 
Fnproven, holds himself as Lancelot, 

Till overborne hy one. be learns — and ye, 305 

Wlir.t are ve? Galabads? — no, nor Pcrcivales' 



THE HOLY' GRAIL 37 

( For thus it pleased the King to range me close 

After Sir Gaialiad) ; 'na}'/ said he, 'but men 

With strength and will to right the wroug'd, of power 

To lay the sudden heads of violence flat, 310 

Knights that in twelve great battles splash'd and dyed 

The strong White Horse in his own heathen blood — 

But one hath seen, and all the blind will see. 

Go, since your vows are sacred, being made : 

Yet — for ye know the cries of all my realm 315 

Pass thro' this hall — how often, my knights. 

Your places being vacant at my side. 

This chance of noble deeds will come and go 

Unchallenged, while ye follow wandering fires 

Lost in the quagmire ! Many of you, yea most, 320 

Eeturn no more : ye think I show myself 

Too dark a prophet : come now, let us meet 

The morrow morn once more in one full field 

Of gracious pastime, that once more the King, 

Before ye leave him for this Quest, may count 325 

The yet-unbroken strength of all his knights, 

Rejoicing in that Order which he made.' 

^'So when the sun broke next from under ground, 
All the great table of our Arthur closed 
And clash'd in such a tourney and so full, 330 

So many lances broken — never yet 
Had Camelot seen the like, since Arthur came; 
And I myself and Galahad, for a strength 
Was in us from the vision, overthrew 
So many knights that all the people cried, 335 

And almost burst the barriers in their heat. 
Shouting, 'Sir Galahad and Sir Percivale !' 

"But when the next day brake from under ground—* 



38 THE HOLY GRAIL 

brother, had you kuowu our Camelot, 

Built by old kings, age after age, so old 340 

The King himself had fears that it would fall. 

So strange, and rich, and dim; for where the roofs 

Totter'd toward each other in the sky. 

Met foreheads all along the street of those 

AYlio watch'd us pass ; and lower, and where the long 345 

Eich galleries, lady-laden, weighed the necks 

Of dragons clinging to the crazy walls. 

Thicker tlian drops from thunder, showers of flowers 

Fell as we past; and men and boys astride 

On wyvern, lion, dragon, grilfin, swan, 350 

At all the corners, named us each by name, 

Calling 'God speed !' but in the ways below 

The knights and ladies wept, and rich and poor 

Wept, and the King himself could hardly speak 

For grief, and all in middle street the Queen, 355 

AYlu) rode by Lancelot, wailVl and shriek'd aloud, 

'This madness has come on us for our sins.' 

So to the Gate of the three Queens we came, 

"Where Arthur's wars are rendered mystically, 

And thence departed every one his way. 360 

"And I was lifted up in heart, and thought 
Of all my late-shown prowess in the lists, 
How my strong lance had beaten down the knights. 
So many and famous names ; and never yet 
Had heaven appear'd so blue, nor earth so green, 365 

For all my blood danced in me, and I knew 
That I should light upon the Holy Grail. 

"Thereafter, the dark warning of our King, 
That most of us would follow wandering fires, 
Came like a driving gloom across mv mind. 370 



THE HOLY GRAIL 39 

Then every evil word I had spoken once, 

And every evil thought I had thought of old, 

And every evil deed 1 ever elid, 

Awoke and cried, 'This Quest is not for thee/ 

And lifting up mine eyes, I found myself 375 

Alone, and in a land of sand and thorns. 

And I was thirsty even unto death ; 

And I, too, cried, 'This Quest is not for thee/ 

"And on I rode, and when I thought my thirst 
Would slay me, saw deep lawns, and then a brook, 380 

.With one sharp rapid, where the crisf)ing white 
Play'd ever back upon the sloping wave, 
And took both ear and eye; and o'er the brook 
Where apple-trees, and apples by the brook 
Fallen, and on the lawns. 'I will rest here,' 385 

I said, 'I am not worthy of the Quest' ; 
But even while I drank the brook, and ate 
The goodly apples, all these things at once 
Fell into dust, and I was left alone, 
And thirsting, in a land of sand and thorns. 390 

"And then behold a woman at a door 
Spinning; and fair the house whereby she sat. 
And kind the woman's eyes and innocent, 
And all her bearing gracious ; and she rose 
Opening her arms to meet me, as Avho should say, 395 

*Eest here' ; but when I touch'd her, lo ! she, too, 
Fell into dust and nothing, and the house 
Became no better than a l)roken shed. 
And in it a dead babe ; and also this 
Fell into dust, and I was left alone. 400 

^^4.nd on I rode, and greater was my thirst. 



40 THE HOLY GRAIL 

Then flash'd a yellow gleam across the world, 

And where it smote the plowshare in the held, 

The plowman left his plowing, and fell down 

Before it; where it glittered on her pail, 405 

The milkmaid left her milking, and fell down 

Before it, and I knew not why, but thought 

'The sun is rising,' tho' the sun had risen. 

Then was I ware of one that on me moved 

In golden armor with a crown of gold 410 

About a casque all jewels ; and his horse 

In golden armor jewell'd everywhere : 

And on the splendor came, flashing me blind ; 

And seem'd to me the Lord of all the world, 

Being so huge. But when I thought he meant 415 

To crush me, moving on me, lo ! he, too, 

Open'd his arms to embrace me as he came. 

And up I went and touch'd him, and he, too. 

Fell into dust, and I was left alone 

And wearying in a land of sand and thorns. 420 

"And I rode on and found a mighty hill. 

And on the top, a city wall'd : the spires 

Prick'd with incredible pinnacles into heaven. 

And by the gateway stirr'd a crowd ; and these 

Cried to me climbing, 'Welcome, Percivale ! 425 

Thou mightiest and thou purest among men!' 

And glad was I and clomb, but found at top 

Xo man, nor any voice. And thence I past 

Far thro' a ruinous city, and I saw 

That mail had once dwelt there ; but there I found 430 

u Only one man of an exceeding age. 
\¥here is that goodly company,' said I, 

'That so cried out upon me ?' and he had 

Scarce any voice to answer, and yet gasp'd. 



THE HOLY GRAIL 41 

'Whence and what art thou ?' and even as he spoke 435 

Fell into dust, and disappear'd, and I 

Was left alone once more, and cried in grief, 

'Lo, if I find the Holy Grail itself 

And touch it, it will crumble into dust.' 

"And thence I dropt into a lowly vale, 440 

Low as the hill was high, and where the vale 
Was lowest, found a chapel, and thereby 
A holy hermit in a hermitage, 
To whom I told my phantoms, and he said: 

" '0 son, thou hast not true humility, 445 

The highest virtue, mother of them all ; 
For when the Lord of all things made Himself 
Naked of glory for His mortal change, 
"Take thou my robe," she said, "for all is thine," 
And all her form shone forth with sudden light 450 

So that the angels were amazed, and she 
Follow'd Him down, and like a flying star 
Led on the gray-hair'd wisdom of the east; 
But her thou hast not known : for what is this 
Thou thoughtest of thy prowess and thy sins ? . 455 

Thou has not lost thyself to save thyself 
As Galahad.' When the hermit made an end, 
In silver armor suddenly Galahad shone 
Before us, and against the chapel door 
Laid lance, and enter'd, and we knelt in prayer. 460 

And there the hermit slaked my burning thirst. 
And at the sacring of the mass I saw 
The holy elements alone; but he, 
'Saw ye no more? I, Galahad, saw the Grail, 
The Holy Grail, descend upon the shrine : 465 

T saw the fierv face as of a child 



42 THE HOLY GRAIL 

That smote itself into the breads and went; 

And hither am 1 come ; and never yet 

Hath wliat thy sister taught me first to see, 

Tills Holy Thing, fail'd from my side, nor come 470 

Cover'd, but moving with me night and day, 

Fainter by day, but always in the night 

Blood-red, and sliding down the blaeken'd marsh 

Blood-red and on the naked mountain top 

Blood-red, and in the sleeping mere below 475 

Blood-red. And in the strength of this I rode, 

Sbattering all evil customs everywhere, 

And past thro' Pagan realms, and made them mine. 

And clash'd with Pagan hordes, and bore tliem down. 

And broke thro' all, and in the strength of this 480 

Come victor. But my time is hard at hand. 

And hence I go; and one will crown me king 

Far in the spiritual city; and come thou, too, 

For thou shall see the vision when I go.' 

"Wliile thus he spake, his eye, dwelling on mine, 485 
Drew me, with power upon me, till I grew 
One with him, to believe as he believed. 
Then, when the day began to wane, we went. 

"There rose a hill that none but man could climb, 
Sca.rr'd with a hundred wintry water-courses — 490 

Storm at the top, and when we gain'd it, storm 
Round us and death ; for every moment glanced 
His silver arms and gloom'd : so quick and thick 
The lightnings here and there to left and right 
Struck, till the dry old trunks about us, dead, 495 

Yea, rotten with a hundred years of death, 
Sprang into fire : and at the base we found 
On either hand, as far as eye could see. 



THE HOLY GRAIL 43 

A great black swamp and of an evil smell, 

Part black, part whiten'd with the bones of men, 500 

Not to be crost, save that some ancient king 

Had built a way, where, link'd with many a bridge, 

A thousand piers ran into the great Sea. 

And (jialahad lied along them bridge by bridge. 

And every bridge as quickly as he crost 505 

Sprang into fire and vanish'd, tho' I yearn'd 

To follow ; and thrice above liim all the heavens 

Open'd and blazed with thunder such as seem'd 

Shoutings of all the sons of God : and first 

At once I saw him far on the great Sea, 510 

In silver-shining armor starry-clear; 

And o'er his head the Holy Vessel hung 

Clothed in white samite or a luminous cloud. 

And with exceeding swiftness ran the boat, 

If boat it were — I saw not whence it came. 515 

And when the heavens open'd and blazed again 

Roaring, I saw him like a silver star — 

And had he set the sail, or had the boat 

Become a living creature clad with wings ? 

And o'er his head the Holy Vessel hung 520 

Redder than any rose, a joy to me, 

For now I knew the veil had been withdrawn. 

Then in a moment when they blazed again 

Opening, I saw the least. of little stars 

Down on the waste, and straight beyond the star 525 

I saw the spiritual city and all her spires 

And gateways in a glory like one pearl — 

No larger, tho' the goal of all the saints — 

Strike from the sea ; and from the star there shot 

A rose-red sparkle to the city, and there 530 

Dwelt, and I know it was the Holy Grail, 

WTiich never eyes on earth again shall see. 



44 THE hOLY GRAIL 

Then fell the floods of heaven drowning the deep. 

And how my feet recrost tlie deathfiil ridge 

No memory in me lives ; but that I touch'd 535 

The chapel-doors at dawn I know ; and thence 

Taking my war-horse from the holy mau^ 

Glad that no phantom vext me more, return'd 

To whence I came, the gate of Arthur's wars." 

"O brother," ask'd Ambrosius, — "for in sooth 540 

These ancient books — and they would win thee — teem, 
Only I find not there this Holy Grail, ■ 
With miracles and marvels like to these, 
Kot all unlike ; which oftentime I read, 
Who read but on my breviary with ease, 545 

Till my head swims ; and then go forth and pass 
Down to the little thorpe that lies so close, 
And almost plaster'd like a martin's nest 
To these old walls — and mingle with our folk; 
And knowing every honest face of theirs 550 

As well as ever shepherd knew his sheep, 
And every homely secret in their hearts, 
Delight myself with gossip and old wives. 
And ills and aches, and teethings, lyings-in, 
'And mirthful sayings, children of the place, 555 

That haA'e no meaning half a league away: 
Or lulling random squabbles when they rise, 
Chafferings and chatterings at the market-cross, 
Eejoice, small man, in this small world of mine, 
Yea, even in their hens and in their eggs — 560 

brother, saving this Sir Galahad, 
Came ye on none but phantoms in your quest, 
No man, no woman?" 

Then Sir Percivale: 
*^A11 men, to one so bound by such a vow, 



THE HOLY GRAIL 45 

And women were as phantoms. 0, my brother, 565 

Why wilt thou shame me to confess to thee 

How far I falter'd from my quest and vow ? 

For after I had lain so many nights, 

A bedmate of the snail and eft and snake. 

In grass and burdock, I was changed to wan 570 

And meagre, and the vision had not come ; 

And then I chanced uj^on a goodly town 

With one great dwelling in the middle of it ; 

Thither I made, and there was I disarm'd 

By maidens each as fair as any flower : 575 

But when they led me into hall, behold. 

The Princess of that castle was the one, 

Brother, and that one only, wao had ever 

Made my heart leap ; for wlien 1 nu)\ed of old. 

A slender page about her father's hall, 580 

And she a slender maiden, all my heart 

Went after her with longing : yet we twain 

Had never kiss'd a kiss, or vow'd a vow. 

And now I came upon her once again. 

And one had wedded her, and he was dead, 585 

And all his land and wealth and state were hers. 

And while I tarried, every day she set 

A banquet richer than the day before 

By me ; for all her longing and her will 

Was toward me as of old ; till one fair morn, 590 

I walking to and fro beside a stream 

That flash'd across her orchard underneath 

Her castle-walls, she stole upon my walk. 

And calling me the greatest of all knights, 

Embraced me, and so kiss'd me tlie first time, 595 

And gave herself and all her wealth to me. 

Then I remember'd Arthur's warning word. 

That most of us would follow wandering fires. 



4C THE HOLY GRAIL 

And the Quest faded in my heart. Anon, 

The heads of all her people drew to me, 600 

With supplication both of knees and tongue : 

'We have heard of thee : thou art our greatest knight. 

Our Lady says it, and we well believe : 

Wed thou our Lady, and rule over us, 

And thou shalt be as Arthur in our land.' 605 

me, my brother ! but one night my vow 

Burnt me within, so that I rose and fled. 

But waiFd and wept, and hated mine own self. 

And ev'n the Holy Quest, and all but her; 

Then after I was join'd with Galahad 610 

Cared not for her, nor anything upon earth.'"' 

Then said the monk, "Poor men, when yule is cold. 
Must be content to sit by little fires. 
And this am I, so that ye care for me 

Ever so little; yea, and blest be Heaven 615 

That brought thee here to this poor house of ours 
AVhere all the brethren are so hard, to warm 
My cold heart with a friend : but the pity 
To find thine own first love once more — to hold, 
Hold her a wealthy bride within thine arms, 620 

Or all but hold, and then — cast her aside. 
Foregoing all her sweetness, like a weed. 
For we that want the Avarmth of double life, 
We that are plagued with dreams of something sweet 
Beyond all sweetness in a life so rich, — 625 

Ah, blessed Lord, I speak too earthlywise. 
Seeing I never stray'd beyond the cell. 
But live like an old badger in his earth, 
With earth about him everywhere, despite 
All fast and penance. Saw ye none beside, 630 

Xone of vour knights?" 



THE HOLY GRAIL 47 

"Yea so/' said Percivale : 
"One night my pathway swerving east, I saw 
The pelican on the casque of our Sir Bors 
All in the middle of the rising moon : 
And toward him spurr'd, and liail'd him, and he me, 635 
And each made joy of either; then he ask'd, 
'Where is he? hast thou seen him — Lancelot":' — Once,' 
Said good Sir Bors, "he dash'd across me — mad. 
And maddening what he rode : and when I cried, 
"Eldest thou then so hotly on a cpiest 6-iO 

So holy," Lancelot shouted, "Stay me not! 
I have been the sluggard, and I ride apace. 
For now there is a lion in the way." 
So vanish'd.' 

"Then Si^Bors had ridden on 
Softly, and sorrowing for our Lancelot, 645 

Because his former madness, once the talk 
And scandal of our table, had returnM ; 
For Lancelot's kith and kin so worship him 
That ill to him is ill to them ; to Bors 
Beyond the rest: he well had been content 650 

Not to have seen, so Lancelot might have seen, 
The Holy Cup of healing; and, indeed, 
Being so clouded with his grief and love. 
Small heart was his after the Holy Quest : 
If God would send the vision, well : if not, 655 

The Quest and he were in the hands of Heaven. 

"And then, with small adventure met. Sir Bors 
Eode to the lonest tract of all tlie realm. 
And found a people there among tlieir crags, 
Our race and blood, a remnant that were left 660 

Pavnim amid their circles, and the stones 



48 THE HOLY GRAIL 

Tliey pitch up straight to lieaven : and their wise men 
Were strong m that old magic whicli can trace 
The wandering of the stars, and scoli"d at him 
And tliis high Quest as at a simple tuing : 665 

Told him he followed — almost Arthur's words — 
A mocking fire : 'what other lire than he, 
Whereby the blood beats, and the blossom blows, 
And the sea rolls, and all the world is warm'd ?' 
And when his answer chafed tliem, the rough crowd, 670 
Hearing he had a difference with their priests, 
Seized him, and bound and plunged him into a cell 
Of great jailed stones ; and lying bounden there 
In darkness thro' innumerable hours 

He heard the hollow-ringing heavens sweep 675 

Over him till by miracle — what else? — 
Heavy as it was, a great stone slipt and fell. 
Such as no wind could move : and thro' the gap 
Glimmer'd the streaming scud : then came a night 
Still as the day was loud; and thro' the gap 680 

.The seven clear stars of Arthur's Table Kound — 
For, brother, so one nigiit, because tliey roll 
Thro' such a round in heaven, we named the stars, 
Eejoicing in ourselves and in our King — 
And these, like bright eyes of familiar friends, 685 

In on him shone : 'i^nd then to me, to me,' 
Said good Sir Bors, 'beyond all hopes of mine, 
W^io scarce had pray'd or ask'd it for myself— 
Across the seven clear stars — grace to me — 
In color like the fingers of a hand 600 

Before a burning ta])er, tlie sweet Grail 
Glided and past, and close upon it jieal'd 
A sharp quick thunder.' Afterwards, a maid, 
Wlio kept our holy faith among her kin 
In secret, entering, loosed and let him go." 695 



THE HOLY GRAIL 49 

To whom the monk : "And I remember now 
That pelican on the casque : Sir Bors it was 
Who spaJve so low and sadly at our board ; 
And mighty reverent at our grace was he : 
A square-set man and honest ; and his eyes, 700 

An out-door sign of all the warmth within, 
Smiled with his lips — a smile beneath a cloud. 
But heaven had meant it for a sunny one : 
Ay, ay. Sir Bors, who else ? But when ye reach'd 
The city, found ye all your knights return'd, 705 

Or was there sooth in Arthur's prophecy, 
Tell me, and what said each, and what the King?" 

Then answer'd Percivale : "And that can I, 
Brother, and truly ; since the living words 
Of so great men as Lancelot and our King 710 

Pass not from door to door and out again, 
But sit within the house. 0, when we reach'd 
The city, our horses stumbling as they trode 
On heaps of ruin, hornless unicorns, 

Crack'd basilisks, and splinter'd cockatrices, 715 

And shatter'd talbots, which had left the stones 
Eaw, that they fell from, brought us to the hall. 

'^And there sat Arthur on the dais-throne. 
And those that had gone out upon the Quest, 
Wasted and worn, and hut a tithe of them, 720 

And those that had not, stood before the King, 
Who, when he saw me, rose, and bade me hail. 
Saying, 'A welfare in thine eye reproves 
Our fear of some disastrous chance for thee 
On hill, or plain, at sea, or flooding ford. 725 

So fierce a gale made havoc here of late 
Among the strange devices of our kings ; 



50 THE HOLY GRAIL 

Yea, shook this newer, stronger hall of ours. 
And from the statue Merlin moulded for us 
Half-wrench'd a golden wing; but now — the Quest, 730 
This vision — hast thou seen the HoJy Cup, 
That Joseph brought of old to Glastonbury?' 

■ "So when I told him all thyself hast heard, 
Ambrosius, and my fresh but fixt resolve 
To pass away into the quiet life, 735 

He answer'd not, but^ sharply turning, ask'd 
Of Gawain, 'Gawain, was this Quest for thee ?' 

" 'Nay, lord,' said Gawain, 'not for such as I. 
Therefore I communed with a saintly man. 
Who made me sure the Quest was not for me ; 740 

For I was much awearied of the Quest: 
But found a silk pavilion in a field. 
And merry maidens in it; and then this gale 
Tore my pavilion from the tenting-pin. 
And blew my merry maidens all about 745 

With all discomfort ; yea, and but for this, 
My twelvemonth and a day were pleasant to me/ 

"He ceased ; and Arthur turn'd to whom at first 
He saw not, for Sir Bors, on entering, push'd 
Athwart the throng to Lancelot, caught his hand, 750 

Held it, and there, half -hidden by him, stood. 
Until the King espied him, saying to him, 
'Hail, Bors ! if ever loyal man and true 
Could see it, thou hast seen the Grail' ; and Bors, 
'Ask me not, for I may not speak of it : 755 

I saw it' ; and the tears were in his eyes. 

"Then there remain'd but Lancelot, for the rest 



THE HOLY GRAIL 51 

Sj^ake but of sundry perils in tlie storm ; 

Perhaps, like him of Cana in Holy Writ, 

Our Arthur kept his best until the last ; 760 

'Thou, too, my Lancelot,' ask'd the King, 'my friend, 

Our mightiest, hath this Quest avail'd for thee ?' 

" 'Our mightiest !' answer d Lancelot, with a groan ; 
'0 King !' — and when he paused, methought I spied 
A dying fire of madness in his eyes — 765 

'0 King, my friend, if friend of thine I be. 
Happier are those that welter in their sin, 
Swine in the mud, that cannot see for slime. 
Slime of the ditch : but in me lived a sin 
So strange, of such a kind, that all of pure, 770 

Xoble, and knightly in me twined and clung 
Eound that one sin, until the wholesome flower 
And poisonous grew together, each as each, 
Not to be pluck'd asunder ; and when thy knights 
Sware, I sware with them only in the hope 775 

That could I touch or see the Holy Grail 
They might be pluck'd asunder. Then I spake 
To one most holy saint, who wept and said, 
That save they could be pluck'd asunder, all 
"My quest were but in vain ; to whom I vow'd 780 

That I would work according as he will'd. 
And forth I went, and while I yearn'd and strove 
To tear the twain asunder in my heart. 
My madness came upon me as of old. 
And whipt me into waste fields far away; 785 

There was I beaten down by little men, 
Mean knights, to whom the moving of my sword 
And shadow^ of my spear had been enow 
To scare them from me once ; and then I came 
All in my folly to the naked shore, 790 



52 THE HOLY GRAIL 

Wide flats, where nothing but coarse grasses grew; 

But such a blast, my King, began to blow. 

So loud a blast along the shore and sea. 

Ye could not hear the waters for the blast, 

Tho' heapt in mounds and ridges all the sea 795 

Drove like a cataract, and all the sand 

Swept like a river, and the clouded heavens 

Were shaken with the motion and the sound. 

And blackening in the sea-foam sway'd a boat, 

Half-swallow'd in it, anchored with a chain; 800 

And in my madness to myself I said, 

"I will embark and I will lose myself. 

And in the great sea wash away my sin." 

I burst the chain, I sprang into the boat. 

Seven days I drove along the dreary deep, 805 

And W' ith me drove the moon and all the stars ; 

And the wind fell, and on the seventh night 

I heard the shingle grinding in the surge. 

And felt the boat shock earth, and looking up, 

Behold, the enchanted towers of Carbonek, 810 

A castle like a rock upon a rock, 

With chasm-like portals open to the sea, 

And steps that met the breaker ! there was none 

Stood near it but a lion on each side 

That kept the entry, and the moon was full. 815 

Then from the boat I leapt, and up the stairs. 

There drew my sword. With sudden flaring manes 

Those two great beasts rose upright like a man. 

Each gript a shoulder, and I stood between ; 

And, ^yhen I would have smitten them, heard a voice, 820 

"Doubt not, go forward ; if thou doubt, the beasts 

Will tear thee piecemeal." Then with violence 

The sword was dash'd from out my hand, and fell. 

And up into the sounding hall I past ; 



THE HOLY GRAIL 53 

But nothing in the sounding hall I saw, 825 

No bench nor table, painting on the wall 

Or shield of knight ; only the rounded moon 

Thro' the tall oriel on the rolling sea. 

But always in the quiet house I heard, 

Clear as a lark, high o'er me as a lark, 830 

A sweet voice singing in the topmost tower 

To the eastward : up I clinib'd a thousand steps 

With pain : as in a dream I seem'd to climb 

For ever : at the last I reach'd the door, 

A light was in the crannies, and I heard, 835 

"Glory and joy and honor to our Lord 

And to the Holy Vessel of the Grail." 

Then in my madness I essay'd the door; 

It gave ; and thro' a stormy glare, a heat 

As from a seventimes-heated furnace, I, 840 

Blasted and burnt, and blinded as I was, 

With such a fierceness that I swoon'd away — 

0, yet methought I saw the Holy Grail, 

All pall'd in crimson samite, and around 

Great angels, awful shapes, and wings and eyes. 845 

And but for all my madness and my sin, 

And then my swooning, I had sworn I saw 

That which I saw ; but what I saw was veil'd 

And cover'd; and this Quest was not for me.' 

"So speaking, and here ceasing, Ijancelot left 850 

The hall long silent, till Sir Gawain — nay, 
Brother, I need not tell thee foolish words, — 
A reckless and irreverent knight was he. 
Now bolden'd.by the silence of his King, — 
Well, I tell thee : '0 King, my liege,' he said, 855 

'Hath Gawain f ail'd in any quest of thine ? 
When have I stinted stroke in f oughten field ? 



54 THE HOLY GRAIL 

But as for thine, mj good friend Percivale, 

Thy holy nun and thou iiave driven men mad. 

Yea, made our mightiest madder tlian our lea;-L 860 

But by mine eyes and by mine ears I swear, 

I will be deafer than the blue-eyed cat, 

And thrice as blind as any noonday owl. 

To holy virgins in their ecstasies, 

Henceforward/ 

" 'Deafer,' said the blameless King 865 

*Gawain, and blinder unto holy things, 
Hope not to make thyself by idle vows, 
Being too blind to have desire to see. 
But if indeed there came a sign from heaven. 
Blessed are Bors, Lancelot and Percivale, 870 

For these have seen according to their sight. 
For every fiery prophet in old times, 
And all the sacred madness of the bard. 
When God made music thro' them, could but speak 
His music by the framework and the chord; 875 

And as ye saw it ye have spoken truth. 

" 'N"ay — but thou errest, Lancelot; never yet 
Could all of true and noble in knight and man 
Twine round one sin, whatever it might be. 
With such a closeness, but apart there grew, 880 

Save that he were the swine thou spakest of, 
Some root of knighthood and pure nobleness; 
Whereto see thou, that it may bear its flower. 

" 'And spake I not too truly, my knights ? 
Was I too dark a prophet when I said 885 

To those who went upon the Holy Quest, 
That most of them w^ould follow wandering fires, 



THE HOLY GRAIL 55 

Lost in the quagmire ? — lost to me and gone. 

And left me gazing at a barren board, 

And a lean Order — scarce return'd a tithe — 890 

And out of those to whom the vision came 

My greatest hardly will believe he saw ; 

Another hath beheld it afar off, 

And leaving human wrongs to right themselves. 

Cares but to pass into the silent life. 895 

And one hath had the vision face to face, 

And now his chair desires him here in vain. 

However they may crown him otherwhere. 

" ^And some among you lield that if the King 
Had seen the sight he would have sworn the vow : 900 

Not easil}", seeing that the King must guard 
That which he rules, and is but as the hind 
To whom a space of land is given to plow. 
Who may not wander from the allotted field 
Before his work be done ; but, being done, 905 

Let visions of the night or of the day 
Come, as they will ; and many a time they come. 
Until this earth he walks on seems not earth. 
This light that strikes his eyeball is not light. 
This air that smites his forehead is not air 910 

But vision — yea, his very hand aiid foot — 
In moments when he feels he canuot die. 
And knows himself no vision to himself. 
Nor the high God a vision, nor that One 
Who rose again : ye have seen what ye have seen.' 915 

"So spake the King : I knew not all he meant." 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 

That story which the bold Sir Bedivere, 
First made and latest left of all the kuights, 
Told, when the man was no more than a voice 
In the white winter of his age, to those 
With whom he dwelt, new faces, other minds. 

For on their march to westward, Bedivere, 
Who slowly paced among the slumbering host. 
Heard in his tent the moanings of the King: 

" I found Him in the shining of the stars, 
I mark'd Him in the flowering of His fields. 
But in His ways with men I find Him not. 
I waged His wars, and now I pass and die. 
me! for why is all around us here 
As if some lesser god had made the world. 
But had not force to shape it as he would. 
Till the High God behold it from beyond. 
And enter it, and make it beautiful? 
Or else as if the world were wholly fair, 
But that these eyes of men are dense and dim, 
And have not power to see it as it is: 
Perchance, because we see not to the close; — 
For I, being simple, thought to work His will, 
And have but stricken with the sword in vain; 
And all whereon I lean'd in wife and friend 
Is traitor to my peace, and all my realm 

59 



60 THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 

Eeels back into the beast, and is no more. 
My God, thou hast forgotten me in my death: 
Xay — God my Christ — I i>ass but shall not die." 

Ihen, ere the last weird battle in the west. 
There came on Arthur sleeiDing, Gawain kill'd 30 

In Lancelot's war, the ghost of Gawain blown 
Along a wandering wind, and past his ear 
Went shrilling, " Hollow, hollow all delight! 
Hail, King! to-morrow thou shalt pass away. 
Farewell! there is an isle of rest for thee. 
And I am blown along a wandering wind, 
And hollow, hollow, hollow all delight." 
And fainter onward, like wild birds that change 
Their season in the night and wail their way 
From cloud to cloud, down the long wind the dream 40 
Shrill'd; but in going mingled with dim cries 
Far in the moonlight haze among the hills, 
As of some lonely city sack'd by night, 
When all is lost, and wife and child with wail 
Pass to new lords; and Arthur woke and call'd, 
"Who spake? A dream. light upon the wind^ 
Thine, Gawain, was the voice — are these dim cries 
Thine? or doth all that haunts the waste and wild 
Mourn, knowing it will go along with me? " 

This heard the bold Sir Bedivere and spake: 50 

" me, my King, let pass whatever will. 
Elves and the harmless glamour of the field; 
But in their stead thy name and glory cimg 
To all high places like a golden cloud 
For ever: but as yet thou shalt not pass. 
Light was Gawain in life, and light in death 
Is Gawain, for the ghost is as the man; 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 61 

And care not thou for dreams from him, but rise — 

I hear the steps of Modred in the west. 

And with him many of thy people, and knights 60 

Once thine, whom thou hast loved, but grosser grown 

Than heathen, spitting at their vows and thee. 

Eight well in heart they know thee for the King. 

Arise, go forth and conquer as of old." 

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere: 
" Far other is this battle in the west 
Whereto we move, than when we strove in youth. 
And brake the petty kings, and fought with Eome, 
Or thrust the heathen from the Eoman wall. 
And shook him thro' the north. Ill doom is mine 70 
To war against my people and my knights. 
The king who fights his people fights himself. 
And they my knights, who loved me once, the stroke 
That strikes them dead is as my death to me. 
Yet let us hence, and find or feel a way 
Thro' this blind haze, which ever since I saw 
One lying in the dust at Almesbury, 
Hath folded in the passes of the world." 

Then rose the King and moved his host by night, 
And ever push'd Sir Modred, league by league, 80 

Back to the sunset bound of Lyonnesse — 
A land of old upheaven from the abyss 
By fire, to sink into the abyss again; 
Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwelt. 
And the long mountains ended in a coast 
Of ever-shifting sand, and far away 
The phantom circle of a moaning sea. 
There the pursiier could pursue no more. 
And he that fled no further fly the King; 



62 THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 

And there, that day ^yhen the great light of heaven 90 

Burn'd at his lowest in the rolling year, 

On the waste sand by the waste sea they closed. 

ISTor ever yet had Arthur fought a fight 

Like this last, dim, weird battle of the west. 

A deathwhite mist slept over sand and sea: 

Whereof the chill, to him who breathed it, drew 

Down with his blood, till all his heart was cold 

With formless tear; and ev'n on Arthur fell 

Confusion, since he saw not whom he fought. 

For friend and foe were shadows in the mist, 100 

And friend slew friend not knowing whom he slew; 

And some had visions out of golden youth. 

And some beheld the faces of old ghosts 

Look in upon the battle; and in the mist 

Was man}^ a noble deed, many a base, 

And chance and craft and strength in single fights, 

And ever and anon with host to host 

Shocks, and the splintering spear, the hard mail hewn. 

Shield-breakings, and the clash of brands, the crash 

Of battleaxes on shatter'd helms, and shrieks 110 

After the Christ, of those who falling down 

Look'd up for heaven, and only saw the mist; 

And shouts of heathen and the traitor knights, 

Oaths, insult, filth, and monstrous blasphemies. 

Sweat, writhings, anguish, labouring of the lungs 

In that close mist, and cryings for the light. 

Moans of the dying, and voices of the dead. 

Last, as by some one deathbed after wail 
Of suffering, silence follows, or thro' death 
Or deathlike swoon, thus over all that shore, 120 

Save for some whisper of the seething seas, 
A dead hush fell; but when the dolorous day 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 63 

Grew drearier toward twilight falling, came 

A bitter wind, clear from the North, and blew 

The mist aside, and with that wind the tide 

Eose, and the jjale King glanced across the field 

Of battle: but no man was moving there; 

Nor any cry of Christian heard thereon, 

Nor yet of heathen; only the wan wave 

Brake in among dead faces, to and fro 130 

Swaying the helpless hands, and up and down 

Tumbling the hollow helmets of the fallen, 

And shiver'd brands that once had fought with Eome, 

And rolling far along the gloomy shores 

The voice of days of old and da3's to be. 

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere, 
And whiter than the mist that all day long 
Had held the field of battle was the King: 

" Hearest thou this great voice that shakes the world, 
And wastes the narrow realm whereon we move, 140 

And beats upon the faces of the dead. 
My dead, as tho' they had not died for me ? — 
Bedivere, for on my heart hath fall'n 
Confusion, till I know not what I am, 
Nor whence I am, nor whether I be King. 
Behold, I seem but King among the dead." 

Then spake the bold Sir Bedivere: " My King, 
King everywhere! and so the dead have kings, 
There also will I worship thee as King. 
Yet still thy life is whole, and still I live 150 

Who love thee; but who hates thee, he that brought 
The heathen back among us, yonder stands, 
Modred, unharm'd, the traitor of thine house." 



64 THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 

Then spake the King: " My house hath been my doom. 
But call not thou this traitor of my house 
Who hath but dwelt beneath one roof with me. 
My house are rather they who sware my vows, 
Yea, even while they brake them, own'd me King. 
And well for thee, saying in my dark hoiir, 
When all the purport of my throne hath fail'd, 160 

That quick or dead thou boldest me for King. 
King am I, whatsoever be their cry; 
And one last act of kinghood shalt thou see 
Yet, ere I pass." And uttering this the King 
Made at the man : then Modred smote his liege 
Hard on that helm which many a heathen sword 
Had beaten thin; while Arthur at one blow^, 
Striking the last stroke with Excalibur, 
Slew him, and all but slain himself, he fell. 

So all day long the noise of battle roll'd 170 

Among the mountains by the winter sea; 
Until King Arthur's Table, man by man, 
Had fall'n in Lyonnesse about their lord. 
King Arthur. Then, because his wound was deep. 
The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him. 
And bore him to a chapel nigh the field, 
A broken chancel with a broken cross. 
That stood on a dark strait of barren land: 
On one side lay the Ocean, and on one 
Lay a great water, and the moon was full. 180 

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere: 
" The sequel of to-day unsolders all 
The goodliest fellowship of famous knights 
Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep 
They sleep — the men I loved. I think that we 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 65 

Shall never more, at any future time, 

Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds, 

"Walking about the gardens and the halls 

Of Camelot, as in the days that were, 

I perish by this people which I made, — 190 

Tho' Merlin sware that I should come again 

To rule once more; but, let what will be, be, 

I am so deeply smitten thro' the helm 

That without help I cannot last till morn. 

Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur, 

Which was my pride: for thou rememberest how 

In those old days, one summer noon, an arm 

Rose up from out the bosom of the lake. 

Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful. 

Holding the sword — and how I row'd across 200 

And took it, and have worn it, like a king; 

And, wheresoever I am sung or told 

In aftertime, this also shall be known: 

But now delay not: take Excalibur, 

And fling him far into the middle mere: 

Watch what thou seest, and lightly bring me word.'^ 

To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere: 
" It is not meet. Sir King, to leave thee thus. 
Aidless, alone, and smitten thro' the helm — 
A little thing may harm a wounded man; 210 

Yet I thy hest will all perform at full. 
Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word/* 

So saying, from the ruin'd shrine he stept. 
And in the moon athwart the place of tombs. 
Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men. 
Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang 
Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down 



66 THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 

By zigzag paths, and juts of pointed rock. 
Came on the shining levels of the lake. 

There drew he forth the brand Excalibur, 230 

And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon, 
Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth 
And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt: 
For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks. 
Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work 
Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long 
That both his eyes were dazzled as he stood, 
This way and that dividing the swift mind. 
In act to throw: but at the last it seeni'd 
Better to leave Excalibur conceal'd 230 

There in the many-knotted waterflags. 
That whistled stiff and dry about the marge. 
So strode he back slow to the wounded King. 

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere: 
" Hast thou perform'd my mission which I gave? 
What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard? " 

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: 
" I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, 
And the wild water lapping on the crag." 

To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale: 240 

" Thou hast betray'd thy nature and thy name, 
Not rendering true answer, as beseem'd 
Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight: 
For surer sign had follow'd, either hand. 
Or voice, or else a motion of the mere. 
This is a shameful thing for men to lie. 
Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again, 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 67 

As thou art lief and dear, and. do the thing 

I bade thee, watch, and lightly bring me word." 

Then went Sir Bedivere the second time 250 

Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere. 
Counting the dewy pebbles, fix'd in thought; 
But when he saw the wonder of the hilt, 
How curiously and strangely chased, he smote 
His palms together, and he cried aloud: 

" And if indeed I cast the brand away. 
Surely a precious thing, one worthy of note. 
Should thus be lost for ever from the earth. 
Which might have pleased the eyes of many men. 
"What good should follow this, if this were done? 260 

What harm, undone? Deep harm to disobey. 
Seeing obedience is the bond of rule. 
Were it well to obey then, if a king demand 
An act unprofitable, against himself? 
The King is sick, and knows not what he does. 
What record, or what relic of my lord 
Should be to aftertime, but empty breath 
And rumours of a doubt ? But were this kept. 
Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings. 
Some one might show it at a joust of arms, 270 

Saying, ' King Arthur's sword, Excalibur, 
Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake. 
Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps 
Upon the hidden bases of the hills.' 
So might some old man speak in the aftertime 
To all the people, winning reverence. 
But now much honour and much fame were lost." 

So spake he, clouded with his own conceit, 



68 THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 

And hid Excalibur the second time, 

And so strode back slow to the wounded King. 280 

Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily: 
""' What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard? " 

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: 
'" I heard the water lapping on the crag, 
And the long ripples washing in the reeds." 

To whom replied King Arthur, miTch in wrath: 
'" Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue, 
XTnfcnightly, traitor-hearted! Woe is me! 
Authority forgets a dying king, 

Laid widow'd of the power in his eye 290 

That bow'd the will. I see thee what thou art, 
For thou, the latest-left of all my knights. 
In whom should meet the offices of all. 
Thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt; 
Either from lust of gold, or like a girl 
Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes. 
Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice, 
And the third time may prosper, get thee hence: 
But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur, 
I will arise and slay thee with my hands." 300 

Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran, 
And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged 
A.mong the bulrush beds, and clutch'd the sword, 
And strongly wheel'd and threw it. The great brand 
Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon. 
And flashing round and round, and whirl'd in an arch, 
Shot like a streamer of the northern morn, 
•Seen where the moving isles of winter shock 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 69 

By night, with noises of the Northern Sea. 

So ilash'd and fell the brand Excalibur: 310 

But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm 

Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful. 

And caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him 

Three times, and drew him under in the mere. 

And lightly went the other to the King. 

Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath: 
" Now see I by thine eyes that this is done. 
Speak out: what is it thou hast heard, or seen? " 

And answer" made the bold Sir Bedivere: 
" Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems 320 

Should blind my purpose, for I never saw. 
Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die, 
Not tho' I live three lives of mortal men. 
So great a miracle as yonder hilt. 
Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling him; 
But when I look'd again, behold an arm, 
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, 
That caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him 
Three times, and drew him under in the mere." 

And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard: 330 
" My end draws nigh; 'tis time that I were gone. 
JMr.ke broad thy shoulders to receive my weight, 
And bear me to the margin; yet I fear 
My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die." 

So saying, from the pavement he half rose. 
Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm. 
And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes 



70 THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 

As in a picture. Him -Sir Bedivere 

Eemorsefully regarded thro' his tears. 

And would have spoken, but lie found not words; 340 

Then took with care, and kneeling on one knee. 

O'er both his shoulders drew the languid hands. 

And rising- bore him thro' the place of tombs. 

But, as he walk'd. King Arthur panted hard, 
Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed 
When all the house is mute. So sigh'd the King, 
Muttering and murmuring at his ear, " Quick, quick! 
I fear it is too late, and I shall die." 
But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge, 
Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walked, 350 
Larger than human on the frozen hills. 
He heard the deep behind him, and a cry 
Before. His own thought drove him like a goad. 
Dry clash'd his harness in the icy caves 
And barren chasms, and all to left and right 
The bare black cliff clang'd round him, as he based 
His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang 
Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels — 
And on a sudden, lol the level lake. 
And the long glories of the winter moon, 360 

Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge. 
Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern. 
Beneath them; and descending they were ware 
That all the decks were dense with stately forms, 
Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream — ^by these 
Three Queens with crowns of gold: and from them rose 
A cry that shiver'd to the tingling stars. 
And, as it were one voice, an agony 
Of lamentation, like a wind that shrills 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 71 

All night in a waste land, where no one comes, 370 

Or hath come, since the making of the world. 

Then murmur'd Arthur, " Place me in the barge." 
So to the barge they came. There those three Queens 
Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept. 
But she, that rose the tallest of them all 
And fairest, laid his head upon her lap. 
And loosed the shatter'd casque, and chafed his hands, 
And call'd him by his name, complaining loud. 
And dropping bitter tears against a brow 
Striped with dark blood: for all his face was white 380 
And colourless, and like the wither'd moon 
Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east; 
And all his greaves and cuisses dash'd with drops 
Of onset; and the light and lustrous curls — 
That made his forehead like a rising sun 
High from the dais-throne — were pareh'd with dust; 
Or, clotted into points and hanging loose, 
Mix'd with the knightly growth that fringed his lips. 
So like a shatter'd column lay the King; 
Kot like that Arthur who, with lance in rest, 390 

From spur to plume a star of tournament. 
Shot thro' the lists at Camelot. and charged 
Before the eyes of ladies and of kings. 

Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere: 
" Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go? 
Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes? 
For now I see the true old times are dead. 
When every morning brought a noble chance. 
And every chance brought out a noble knight. 
Such times have been not since the light that led 400 

The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh. 



72 THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 

But now the whole Round Table is dissolved 
Which was an image of the mighty world. 
And I, the last, go forth companionless, 
And the days darken round me, and the years. 
Among new men, strange faces, other minds." 

And slowly answered Arthur from the barge: 
" The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 
And God fulfils himself in many ways, 
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. 410 

Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me? 
I have lived my life, and that which I have done 
May He within himself make pure! but thou. 
If thou shouldst never see my face again, 
Pray for my soul. IMore things are wrought by prayer 
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice 
Rise like a fountain for me night and day. 
For what are men better than sheep or goats 
That nourish a blind life within the brain. 
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 420 

Both for themselves and those who call them friend? 
For so the whole round earth is every way 
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. 
But now farewell. I am going a long way 
With these thou seest — if indeed I go 
(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) — 
To the island-valley of Avilion; 
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, 
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies 
Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns 430 

And bowery hollows crnwn'd with summer sea, 
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.-" 

So said he, and the barge with oar and sail 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 73 

Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan 

That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, 

Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood 

With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere 

Revolving many memories, till the hull 

Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn, 

And on the mere the wailing died away. 440 

But when that moan had past for evermore, 
The stillness of the dead world's winter dawn 
Amazed him, and he groan'd, " The King is gone." 
And therewithal came on him the weird rhyme, 
" From the great deep to the great deep he goes." 

Whereat he slowly turn'd and slowly clomb 
The last hard footstep of that iron crag; 
Thence mark'd the black hull moving yet, and cried, 
" He passes to be King among the dead. 
And after healing of his grievx)us wound 450 

He comes again; but — if he come no more — 
me, be yon dark Queens in yon black boat. 
Who shriek'd and wail'd, the three whereat we gazed 
On that high day, when, clothed with living light. 
They stood before his throne in silence, friends 
Of Arthur, who should help him at his need? " 

Then from the dawn it seem'd there came, but faint 
As from beyond the limit of the world. 
Like the last echo born of a great cry, 

Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice 460 

Around a king returning from his wars. 

Thereat once more he moved about, and clomb 
Ev'n to the highest he could climb, and saw, 



74 THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 

Straining his eyes beneath an arch of hand, 
Or thought he saw, the speck that bare the King, 
Down that long water opening on the deep 
Somewhere far off, pass on and on, and go 
From less to less and vanish into light. 
And the new sun rose bringing the new year. 



TO THE QUEEN 



TO THE QUEEN 



LOYAL to the royal in thyself, 

And loyal to thy land, as this to thee- 

Bear witness, that rememberable day, 



When, pale as yet, and fever-worn, the Prince 
A\'lio scarce had pluck'd his flickering life again 5 

From halfway down the shadow of the grave, 
Past with thee thro' thy people and their love. 
And London roU'd one tide of joy thro' all 
Her trebled millions, and loud leagues of man 
And welcome ! witness, too, the silent cry, 10 

The prayer of many a race and creed, and clime — 
Thunderless lightnings striking under sea 
From sunset and sunrise of all thy realm, 
And that true Xorth, whereof we lately heard 
A strain to shame us "keep you to yourselves; 1-j 

So loyal is too costly ! friends — your love 
Is but a burthen : loose the bond, and go." 
Is this the tone of empire ? here the faith 
That made us rulers ? this, indeed, her voice 
And meaning, whom the roar of Hougoumont 20 

Left mightiest of all peoples under heaven? 
What shock has fool'd her since, that she should speak 
So feebly ? wealthier — wealthier — hour by hour ! 
The voice of Britain, or a sinking land. 
Some third-rate isle half-lost among her seas? 25 

There rang her voice, when the full city peal'd 
Thee and thy Prince ! The loyal to their crown 

77 



78 TO THE QUEEN 

Are loyal to their own far sons, who love 

Our oeeaii-empire with her boundless homes 

For ever-broadening England, and her throne 30 

In our vast Orient, and one isle, one isle, 

That knows not her own greatness : if she knows 

And dreads it we are falFn. But thou, my Queen, 

Xot for itself, but thro' thy living love 

For one to whom I made it o'er his grave 35 

Sacred, accept this old imperfect tale. 

New-old, and shadowing Sense a war with Soul 

*Ideal manhood closed in real man, 

Eather than that gray king, whose name, a ghost, 

Streams like a cloud, man-shaped, from mountain peak, 40 

And cleaves to cairn and cromlech still ; or him 

Of Geoffrey's book, or him of Malleor's, one 

Touch'd by the adulterous finger of a time 

That hover'd between war and wantonness, 

And crownings and dethronements : take withal 45 

Thy poet's blessing, and his trust that Heaven 

Will blow the tempest in the distance back 

From thine and ours : for some are scared, who mark. 

Or wisely or unwisely, signs of storm, 

AYaverings of every vane with every wind, 50 

And wordy trucklings to the transient hour, 

Aud fierce or careless looseners of the faith. 

And Softness breeding scorn of simple life. 

Or Cowardice, the child of lust for gold, 

Or Labor, with a groan and not a voice, 55 

Or Art with poisonous honey stol'n from France. 

And that which knows, but careful for itself, 

An^l that which knows not, ruling that which knows 

To its own harm : the goal of this great world 

* This line was added by Tennyson in 1891. 



TO THE QUEEN 79 

Lies beyond sight : 5-et — if our slowly-grown 60 

And crown'd Bepiiblic's crowning common-sense, 

That saved her many times, not fail — their fears 

Are morning shadows htiger than the shapes 

That cast them, not those gloomier which forego 

The darkness of that battle in the West, 65 

Where all of high and holy dies awav. 



NOTES 

DEDICATION 

Flos Regum Arthurus. Artlmr, the flower of kings. 

Joseph of Exeter. A native of Exeter; one of the best mediseval 
Latin poets in England. He went to the Holy Land on a crusade 
in 1188. 

1. His Memory. In memory of Albert, Prince Consort, the hus- 
band of Queen Victoria, who died (1861), eight years before the 
publication of the volume containing the following Idylls. Prince 
Albert was a man of cultivated tastes and wide interests, and of 
fine integrity of character. 

12. Imminent war. The Trent Affair in 1861 seemed likely 
to involve the United States and Great Britain in war. 

37. To fruitful strifes and rivalries of peace. The Prince Consort 
was active in promoting the first International Exhibition in 1851 
and was active in furthering the second (1862) when death came. 

THE COMING OF ARTHUR 

The Coming of Arthur, The Holy Grail, Pellcas and Ettarre, and 
The Passing of Arthur were published in a volume which appeared 
in 1869. 

Section I. (lines 1-138). 

For the old story, Arthur's early life and birth, Morte D'Arfhur 
(Globe ed.) Bk. i., ch. 1-7, 19. For the struggle with the vassals, 
i., 12-15. For Arthur's love for Guinevere, i., 16 and iii., 1-2. 
For Arthur's sword and the Lady of the Lake, i., 23. Marriage of 
Arthur, iii., 5. Arthur's strife with Rome, tribute, i., 21; v., 1-2. 

1. Cameliard, a vague region in southeast England. 

5. Many a petty king. Among these kings mentioned by Geoffrey 
of Monmouth in his Chronicle are two referred to in Milton's 
Comus, Brutus or " Brute " and two referred to by Shakespeare, — 

81 



82 NOTES 

Leir (Lear) and Cassibelaunus (Cassibelan of Cymbeline). Britain 
at this time, as the context implies, was divided into many petty 
tribal kingdoms or great clans with their chief or king. 

8. The heathen host. The Angles and Saxons during the fifth 
and sixth centuries made fierce incursions into Britain. 

11. The beast. The beast is used by Tennyson to represent 
the lower, sensual, brutish parts of life, — barbarism and man's 
animal nature. In like manner, music is to represent the spiritual 
elements of culture and civilization, which Arthur would bring 
into his kingdom. Camelot, where Arthur held court, is built 
to music, because music represents the principle of harmony and 
beauty; it is a symbol, after the beast has been slain, of the per- 
fect ordering of the forces of life in this spiritual city. See Gareth 
and Lynelie, 234-274. 

13. Aurelius. Geoffrey of Monmouth's Chronicle has for the 
subject of its fifth book the reign of Aurelius, who lived about 
440. He drove back the Saxon invaders. He was descended from 
the last Roman general Constantine, who was elected emperor 
of Britain, Gaul, and Spain. 

14. Uther. See the sixth book of Geoffrey of Monmouth's 
Chronicle for an account of King Uther. Uther had two golden 
dragons made, one of which he used as a royal standard; hence 
his title, Pen-Dragon, Dragon's head. It is referred to in the last 
scene between Arthur and Guinevere, when Arthur bids the nuns 
to care for the Queen: 

" And while he spake to these his helm was lower' d, 
To which for crest the golden dragon clung 
Of Britain; so she did not see the face, 
Which then was as an angel's, but she saw, 
Wet with the mists and smitten by the lights, 
The dragon of the great Pendragonshi]^ 
Blaze, making all the night a stream of fire." 

Guinevere, 590-596. 

17. Puissance. Strength or power. 

17. Table Round. This was an order of knighthood established 
by King Arthur. In legendary history it was a table made by 
Merlin for Uther Pendragon and given to Arthur, along with one 
hundred knights, as a wedding gift from Guinevere's father. It 
seated one hundred and fifty knights. Of the fifty remaining 



NOTES 83 

places, about thirty were filled by Merlin and the other twenty 
left open to those who might win a place by their knightliness. 
The knights of the Round Table of whom Tennyson writes in the 
Idylls are: 

" Bedivere — ' First made and latest left of all the knights '; 
Lancelot — ' His warrior whom he lov'd and honor'd most '; 
Gawain — ' A reckless and irreverent knight was he ' ; 
Modred — ' Struck for the throne, and striking found his doom '; 
Gareth — ' Underwent the sooty yoke of kitchen vassalage ' ; 
Kay — ' No mellow master of the meats and drinks ' ; 
Geraint — ' A tributary prince of Devon,' married to Enid ; 
Balin — ' The Savage; and Balan, his brother.' 
Percivale — ' Whom Arthur and his knighthood call'd The Pure '; 
Galahad — ' But I, Sir Arthur, saw the Holy Grail '; 
Bors — ' A square-set man and honest,' of Lancelot's kin; 
Pelleas — ' Of the Isles '; enamoured of Ettarre; 
Tristram — 'Of the Woods'; slain by Mark, Isolt's husband; 
also Ulfias, Brastias, Valence, and Sagramore." 

— Rowe. 

29. To human sucklings. Many legends refer to the suckling 
of human children by wolves, of which Romulus and Remus are the 
best known. Kipling's Mowgli is a case of human child running 
with a pack of wolves. A few authenticated cases similar are 
reported in India. In old superstition men were sometimes 
turned into wolves retaining human intelligence. A man so 
transformed became particularly cruel and was called a werwolf. 
See Mrs. Josephine Peabody Marks's The Wolf of Gubbio; the 
Wolf in the beginning symbolizes cruel, vengeful, fierce qualities. 

34. Groan'd for the Roman legions. The Romans conquered 
Britain in the first century b.c. and held dominion over it as a 
province for four or five centuries. For is used in the sense of 
on account of. 

36. Urien. A king of North Wales " who made great war upon 
Leodogrance." 

43. Uther's son. For accounts of Arthur's birth, see 184-224, 
366-401 of this Idyll. A popular tradition says that Arthur was 
carried to the island of Avalon by his sister, Morgan le Fay (the 
fairy queen), who held court there. " In the romance of Ogier 
le Danois, when Ogier, who Morgue la Fay determines shall be her 



84 NOTES 

lover, arrives at the palace of Avalon, he found there, besides 
Morgue la Fay, her brother King Arthur and her brother Auberon, 
the Oberon of fairy romances." 

55-57. Note the effect of Guinevere upon Arthur, and Guine- 
vere's failure to notice Arthur, and in 89-93 Arthur's dream of 
what they two, as king and queen, might accomplish together. 

72. Gorlols. Gorlois, duke of Tintagel, married Ygerne, who, 
after his death, married Uther. Whether Arthur was son of 
Gorlois, or son of Uther, or son of the knight Anton who was his 
care-taker, was disputed by his barons and questioned by Leodo- 
gran before giving his daughter to wed with Arthur. 

96. Pitched pavilions. Tents pitched or set up. 

99. High day. The planet Venus is sometimes seen at high 
noon. 

102. Shrilling unto blood. Stirring up the blood violently. 

124. His warrior. Lancelot. 

127. Liege. ■ The superior to whom one owes feudal allegiance 
and service. 

131-133. In the plot of the cycle of the Idylls of the King, this 
oath sworn between Arthur and Lancelot is highly important. 
It was because Lancelot was untrue to the perfect faith of the 
king — in Lancelot's guilty love of Queen Guinevere — that the 
dissolution of the Round Table was finally brought about. 

In this first section, the narrative has accomplished certain 
things: it has introduced, in the first place, Guinevere, " fairest 
of all flesh on earth," and by giving her the place of prominence, 
which the opening is, has indicated the important role she is to 
play in this Idyll and indeed in the whole cycle of The Idylls of 
the King. This is followed (5-45) by what is technically called 
antecedent material, that is, material which explains how things 
are prior to the beginning of the real action of the narrative. The 
condition of the kingdom of Leodogran creates an occasion or a 
motive for calling upon Arthur to help him; with Arthur's coming, 
and catching sight of Guinevere, and desiring her hand, the 
action of the Idyll is technically launched. Plot action depends 
on the existence of two opposing forces, for obviously if the hero 
got, without any difficulty, what he wanted, there would be no 
story to tell, only instantaneous fulfillment. Here the opposing 
force or obstacle to Arthur's desire is Leodogran, who may not, 
if the doubt as to whether Arthur is really king is not dispelled, 



NOTES 85 

give his daughter's hand to Arthur. Note how this obstacle 
is introduced in 62-73. When Arthur makes his formal request 
for Guinevere's hand, this obstacle at once comes to the front, 
in the next section. 

Section II. (139-445). 

150. Merlin. The enchanter of Arthurian romance was of 
miraculous birth, and an adept in magic, but finally came into 
the toils of Vivien, through whom he met his death, as related in 
the idyll bearing their names. 

" The most famous man of all those times, 
Merlin, who knew the range of all their arts. 
Had built the king his havens, ships, and halls, 
Was also Bard, and knew the starry heavens; 
The people called him Wizard." 

— Merlin and Viiien. 

" And so Bleise wrote the battle, word for word- as MerHn told 
him." 

— Malory, I., 15. 

160-161. Note the king's way of telling the chamberlain his 
remarks are of little help. 

167. Reason in the chase. Because the cuckoo throws out of a 
nest the eggs of the owner and leaves its own eggs to be hatched 
there instead. 

186. Tintagil. In Cornwall, near the sea. Close by is the reputed 
birthplace of Arthur, Tintagil castle. 

208. And that same night. 

" And that night the bard 
Sang Arthur's glorious wars, and sang the King 
As well-nigh more than man, and rail'd at these 
Who call'd him the false son of Gorlois: 
For there was no one knew from whence he came; 
But after tempest, when the long wave broke 
All down the thimdering shores of Bude and Bos, 
There came a day as still as heaven, and then 
They found a naked child upon the sands 
Of dark Tintagil by the Cornish sea, 



86 NOTES 

And that was Arthur; and they foster'd him 
Till he by miracle was approven King." 

—Guinevere, 283-294. 

243. Gawain. In the old chronicle, Gawain stands equal to 
Lancelot in honor. In Lancelot and Elaine his " courtesy with 
a touch of traitor in it " is developed by Tennyson, 552-720; and 
in The Passmg of Arthur, 30-49. In Guinevere is a spirited 
description of Modred which should be read in full. The passage 
begins, — 

" For thus it chanced one morn when all the court, 
Green-suited, but with plumes that mock'd the May, 
Had been — their wont — a-maying and return'd, 
That Modred still in green, all ear and eye, 
Climb 'd to the high top of the garden- wall 
To sp3' some secret scandal if he might. 

Sir Lancelot passing by 
Spied where he couch' d, and as the gardener's hand 
Picks from the colewort a green caterpillar, 
So from the high wall and the flowering grove 
Of grasses Lancelot pluck' d him by the heel, 
And cast him as a worm upon the way." 

In the older romances of the Arthurian cycle, Gawain is the 
beau ideal of courage and courtesy, but as time goes on, he suffers 
deterioration at the hands of the writers and by Tennyson is changed 
into a boaster and flippant intriguer. 

251-252. Note the question Leodcgran puts to Bellicent and 
note whether it is answered later. 

256. Uther's peerage. The peers under Uther. 

259-270. Note the effect on the knights of their vows to Arthur. 

" I made them lay their hands in mine and swear 
To reverence the king as if he were 
Their conscience, and their conscience as their King. 
To break the heathen and uphold the Christ, 
To ride abroad redressing human wrongs. 
To speak no slander or to listen to it, 
To honor his own word as if his God's, 
To lead sweet lives in purest chastity. 



NOTES 87 

To love one maiden only, cleave to her 

And worship her by years of noble deeds. 

Until they won her . . . 

Not only to keep down the base in man, 

But teach high thought and amiable words 

And courtliness, and the desire of fame. 

And love of truth, and all that makes a man." 

— Guinevere, 464-480. 

275. Three Fair Queens. See Introduction, xv, and The Passing 
of Arthur, 365-380. 

282. The Lady of the Lake. Symbolizes the church or religion. 
See Malory, i., 22. 

284. Samite. " From two Greek words meaning six and thread, 
hexamitum, literally six threaded. (Cf. dimity, two threaded.) 
Originally a heavy sillc material, each thread of which was sup- 
posed to be twisted of six fibres. Later, rich heavy silk of any 
kind." 

288. Minster. Originally a monastery; afterwards the church 
of a monastery; and since many such churches became later 
cathedrals, the word became a general term for cathedral, — York 
minster. 

293. To walk the waters. " And in the fourth watch of the night 
he came unto them, walking upon the sea. And when the dis- 
ciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled." Matt. 
xiv., 25-26. See Mark, vi., 49-50. 

294. Excalihur. The sword given Arthur by the Lady of the 
Lake, — an enchanted weapon. " For while ye have the scabbard 
upon you, ye shall lose no blood, be ye never so sore wounded." 
Malory, i., 23. For an account of the way Arthur got the sword, 
see The Passing of Arthur, 196. A hst of over thirty swords of great 
heroes is given in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, under 
" Sword." A few of the most notable are: 

C«esar's Crocea Mors. 

Charlemagne's La Joyeuse. 

The Cid's Colada. 

Lancelot's Aroundight. 

Roland's Durindale. 



88 NOTES 

Compare Longfellow's lines: — 

" It is a sword of a good knight, ^ 

Though homespun be his mail; 
What matter if it be not hight 
Joyeuse, Colada, Durindale, 
Excalibur, or Aroundight." 

298. Urim. Lights. " And thou shalt put on thy breast plate 
of judgment the Urim and Thummim; and they shall be upon 
Aaron's breast, when he goeth in before Jehovah." Exodus, 
xxviii. 30. The Urim of the Jewish High Priest are supposed to 
have been precious stones, but no one knows. The element of 
vagueness is fitting here. 

301. The oldest tongue. Tennyson has in mind Hebrew, but 
no one knows what is the oldest tongue. 

322. Note the characteristics ascribed to Modred. See The 
Passing of Arthur, 151-170. 

342. Heath. Heather. 

362. Shrunk like a fairy changeling. In popular superstition 
the fairies sometimes took one child and left another in its place. 
The child left by the fairies was always ugly, wretched looking and 
stupid; the child taken was always beautiful and full of promise. 

" But only changeling out of Fairyland." 

Gareth and Lynette, 200. 

379. Ninth wave. The ninth wave was often spoken of by the 
old Welsh poets as larger than the others, just as the tenth wave 
was spoken of by the Romans as larger than the others. On 
the beach near Edinburgh, De Quincey and John Wilson tried to 
verify the superstition as to the greater height of the tenth wave; 
needless to say, without success. 

401. Riddling triplets. " The most ancient of the Cambrian 
bards wrote in stanzas of three rhyming lines, or the Warrior's 
Triplet. Hence are said to have sprung the Welsh Triads, which 
contain the Cymric systems of theology, ethics, history, juris- 
prudence, and bardism." — Rovje. The mysterious and baffling 
character of these triads is usually emphasized. 

421. Again to come. The belief in a " second coming " is found 
in the legends of many heroes, e.g., Charlemagne and Barbarossa^ 
See The Passing of Arthur, Notes, 1. 28. 



NOTES 89 

This section is devoted to the obstacles which stand in the way 
of Arthur's attaining the hand of Guinevere. Leodogran first 
demands from his hoary chamberlain the story of Arthur's birth; 
the answer is so vague that Leodogran next asks Arthur's envoys, 
for whom Sir Bedivere speaks, recounting the various rumors of 
Arthur's birth. Then follows the story of Queen Bellicent, 
Arthur's sister. Leodogran's question to her is slightly different, — ■ 
" A doubtful throne is ice on summer seas " — and concerns itself 
with finding out whether Arthur, with his few knights, can " hold 
his foemen down." This creates an occasion for Bellicent to tell 
about the knights and the founding of the Round Table, as well 
as to tell the story of Arthur's miraculous birth. Moreover, 
she has the advantage of being a narrator nearer the events she 
narrates than the others: she saw Arthur crowned, saw Merlin, 
The Lady of the Lake, and the sword Excalibur. Tennyson 
desired to get this material before the reader and invented this 
device for introducing it. Bellicent had the story of Arthur's 
birth direct from the lips of Bleys before he died. Leodogran, 
still debating, has a dream which leads him to favorable decision 
of Arthur's request, and the last obstacle is removed. 

Section III (1. 446-518). 

449-451. See the poem Lancelot and Queen Guinevere for what 
is condensed into these two lines. See Malorj', iii., ch. 1-2. 

460. While with May. A kind of hawthorn with a perfect 
white bloom. 

466. Doom. From an old Teutonic root, meaning that which 
is put or set up; hence an enactment or decision. 

481-501. Blow trumpet, etc. " It (this coronation song) em- 
bodies the thought of the poem, grips the whole meaning of it 
together. And its sound is the sound of martial triumph, of 
victorious weapons in battle, and of knights in anns. We hear 
in the carefully varied chorus, in the very rattle and shattering 
of the vowels in the words, the beating of axe on helm and shield 
on shield. Rugged, clanging, clashing lines — it is a splendid 
effort of art. King Olaf might have sung it."— Stopford Brooke. 

504. The slow-fading mistress. Weakened by invasion and in- 
ternal strife, Rome was losing, by the fifth and sixth centuries, 
her dominion over Britain. 

514. For a space. Before sin came in to break the fellowship. 



90 NOTES 

when the knights were all pledged " to live the strength and die 
the lust," in obedience to the King. 

517. Twelve great battles. Nennius, writing in the ninth century, 
speaks of the twelve battles won by Arthur over the Saxon hordes. 
See Lancelot and Elaine, 285-309. 

The section concerns itself with the fulfillment of Arthur's desire, 
his marriage with Guinevere, and the founding of his strong, united 
kingdom. The close brings us back to the idea uppermost in the 
beginning, the ravaged and disrupted state of the land, now to be 
fused under Arthur into a kingdom of peace, of noble service, 
and of ideal manhood, — his knights the pattern of triie courtesy. 

THE HOLY GRAIL 

For the old story read Le Morte d' Arthur. For Percivale, — Bk. 
i., 1; X., 22; xi., 7-8, 11-14; xiv., 1-6, 10; xxvii., 9-11; for 
Galahad,— Bk. xi., 1, 2, 6, 8; Bk. xiii., 1-5; 9-17; xviii., 1-14; 
18-23; for Gawain, — Bk. xvi., 1-5; for Bors,^Bk. xvi., 6-17. 

Section I. (lines 1-337). 

7. Camelot. A legendary place in England where Arthur had 
his palace, his court, and Round Table. It is variously placed in 
Cornwall, in Somersetshire, and in or near Winchester in Hamp- 
shire. At Queen's Camel (Somersetshire) certain large intrench- 
ments there are called by the inhabitants the ruins of " King 
Arthur's palace." 

15. Branches into smoke. The pollen of the yew tree resembles 
smoke. " There has been a great deal of smoke in the yew trees 
this year. One day there was such a cloud that it seemed to be 
a fire in the shrubbery." Lady Tennyson's Journal, April, 1868. 
Lord Hallam Tennyson adds: " It was here that he (Tennyson) 
wrote the speech of Ambrosius in The Holy Grail, with the lines about 
this ' smoke '; that is, the pollen of the yew blown and scattered 
by the wind." Cf. In Memoriam, xxxix: 

" Old warder of these buried bones, 

And answering now my random stroke 
With fruitful cloud and living smoke, 
Dark yew, that graspest at the stones." 
Cf. Wordsworth's poem, Few; Trees. 



NOTES 91 

21. Beyond the pale. Beyond the limits or the enclosure of the 
monastery. 

" To walk the cloister's studious pale." 

— Milton, II Penseroso, 176. 

28. Round Table. See The Coming of Arthur, Notes, 1. 17. 

31. Holy Grail. The Holy Grail was the cup in which Joseph 
of Arimathea caught the blood from the wounds of the crucified 
Christ. The sight of the Holy Grail was said to cure men of their 
wounds. For the chief romances of the Holy Grail, see Alfred 
Nutt: Studies in the Legends of the Holy Grail, pp. 1-4. Among 
the best known are: Perceval le Gallois ou Le Conte del Graal, 
a French poem of 60,000 verses, of which 10,000 are by Chretien 
de Troyes; Parzival, a German poem by Wolfram von Eschen- 
bach, 1.3th century; Roman des Diverses Quetes de San Graal, 
by Walter Mapes. See also The High History of the Holy Grail, 
Temple Classics Series. Dent and Co., London. 

38. Green in Heaven's eyes. We are quick with life, quick 
in response to things that relate to heaven, but dead to other things. 

46. The cup. " And he took the cup and gave thanks, and gave 
it to them, saying. Drink ye all of it." Matt, xxvi, 27. 

48. Arojnat. A poetic form for Arimathea in Palestine; prob- 
ably the modern city of Ramleh. 

49. 'Day of darkness. When Jesus was crucified there was dark- 
ness over the land. Matt, xxvii, 50. 

50. Moriah. A hill in Jerusalem; the site of Solomon's temple. 

51. Arimathvean Joseph. " When the even was come, there came 
a rich man of Arimathaea, named Joseph, who also himself was 
Jesus' disciple. He went to Pilate and begged the body of Jesus." 
Matt, xxvii, 53-68. 

Cf. " Yet true it is, that long before that day 
Hither came Joseph of Arimathy, 
Who brought with him the holy grayle, they say, 
And preacht the truth." 

— Spenser: Faerie Queene. 

" Next holy Joseph came . . . 
The Saviour of mankind in sepulchre that laid; 
That to the Britons was the apostle." 

— Drayton. 



92 NOTES 

52. Glastonbury. A town in Somersetshire. The Abbey of 
Glastonbury is said to have been founded by Joseph of Arimathea, 
and became the largest and wealthiest outside Westminster. In 
439 St. Patrick came to Glastonbury, founded a monastery, lived 
many years there and died there. King Arthur, according to some 
legends, is buried there. Extensive ruins of a much later Abbey, 
destroyed by fire in the reign of Henry II., still exist and are 
among the most beautiful in England. Here Guinevere was buried 
by the side of Arthur; Sir Lancelot swooned for sorrow when she 
was " put in the earth." 

52. Winlerthorn. Joseph, according to the legend, put into the 
ground at Glastonbury his staff of thorn, which blossoms on Christ- 
mas eve. 

[Here] " trees in winter bloom and bear their summer's green." 

— Drayton. 

61. Arviragus. A mythical younger son of Cymbeline, King of 
Britain, in the first century a.d. 

63. Wattles. Twigs or branches interlaced into a frame-work. 

70. Than sister. " Percivale's sister is admirably drawn. All 
the main characteristics of the female mystic saint are embodied 
in her; and the picture is made by scattered touches given with 
apparent lightness throughout the story." — Stopford Brooke. 

Cf. " And the house midway hanging, see 
That saw Saint Catherine bodily. 
Felt on its floors her sweet feet move. 
And the live light of fiery love 
Burn from her beautiful strange face." 

Swinburne: Siena. 

Cf. Tennyson's St. Agnes' Eve and Crashaw's Ode to Saint 
Theresa for similar studies. 

135. Galahad. He was the purest of the knights. His shield, 
which came indirectly from Joseph of Arimathea, was snow white, 
with a cross in red of Joseph's blood. He saw the Holy Grail. 
" A great multitude of angels bear his soul up to heaven "; . . 
— Malory: History of Prince Arthur, III, 101-103. " Sithence was 
never no man that could say he had seen the sangreal." — 
Malory. 

135. In white armour. The Grail hero usualh^ wears red in 
mediaeval romance. Galahad is painted with red attire in the 
Abbey pictures. 



NOTES 93 

138. In so young youth. The romances make him only fifteen. 

168. Merlin. See The Coming of Arthur, Notes, 1. 150. 

172. Siege perilous. A seat of the Round Table reserved for 
the knight who should be successful in the quest of the Holy Grail; 
no other person could sit in it without peril, without the earth's 
swallowing him up. 

202. Gmcain. See The Coming of Arthur, Notes, 1. 243. In 
one version, Quest of the Sangreal, the knights draw lots for the 
directions they shall take: 

" Sir Launcelot drew the north, that fell domain, 
Where fleshly man must brook the airy fiend, .... 
The south fell softly to Sir Perceval's hand: 
Some shadowy angel breathed a silent sign: 
That so that blameless man, that courteous knight, 
Might mount and mingle with the happy host. 
Of God's white army in their native land! 
But hark the greeting! ' Tristan for the West! ' 
Sir Galahad holds the Orient arrow's name: 
His chosen hand unbars the gate of day! 
O! blessed East! 'mid visions such as thine, 
'Twere well to grasp the Sangraal and die." 
Cf. also Lowell's The Vision of Sir Launfal: 
"My golden spurs now bring to me. 

And bring to me my richest mail, 

For to-morrow I go over land and sea 

In search of the Holy Grail; 

Shall never a bed for me be spread. 

Nor shall a pillow be under my head. 

Till I begin my vow to keep; 

Here on the rushes will I sleep. 

And perchance there may come a vision true 

Ere day create the world anew." 

209. Crying on help. Gave the cry for help. 
228. The dim rich city. Cf.: 

' They sat and communed of things past : what state 
King Arthur, yet unwarred upon by fate. 
Held high in hall at Camelot, like one 
Whose lordly life was as the mounting sun 



94 NOTES 

That climbs and pauses on the point of noon, 
Sovereign." 

— Swinburne: Tristram of Lyonesse. 

250. Twelve great battles. See The Coming of Arthur, Notes, 
1. 517. 

253. Excalibur. See The Coming of Arthur, Notes, 1. 294. 

263. The golden dragon. See The Coming of Arthur, Notes, 
1. 14. 

276. Had I been here. Explain Arthur's attitude. 

287. Wilderness to see. " And as these went their way, Jesus 
began to say unto the multitudes concerning John, What went 
ye out into the wilderness to behold? a reed shaken with the 
wind? "—Matt, xi, 7. 

300. Taliessin. Son of St. Henwig, chief of the bards of the 
West, in the time of King Arthur. The Mabinogian gives the 
legends concerning him. Some of his poems are still in existence. 

" That Taliessin, once which made the rivers dance 
And in his rapture raised the mountains from their trance. 
Shall tremble in my verse." 

— Drayton. 

310. Heads of violence. Sudden insurrections. 

312. Strong White Horse. The white horse was the Saxon symbol. 

" The Lords of the White Horse 
Heathen, the herd by Hengist left." 

— Guinevere, 15. 

This section introduces Sir Percivale, and in the first seven lines 
gives in brief his life-history, — his leaving the Round Table for a 
monastery and his death there. Thus the author hints by elimina- 
ting the element of suspense, that the interest centers not primarily 
in Percivale, but in something with which he was connected — the 
Holy Grail, the title of the Idyll. , The monk Ambrosius is a device 
to draw from Percivale, by well-directed questions, the fact of the 
existence of the Holy Grail, its coming to England, its being seen 
by a holy nun, as a reward of her fasting, prayers, and pure life, 
and, in consequence, the desire of others to see this wonder, and 
their vows to go in search of it. The return of the king and his 
dark warning and disapproval of such vows for most of the knights, 



NOTES 95 

give the first hint of trouble. Note 293-294 especially. The 
section closes with the • tourney of the knights on the eve of 
departure. 

Section II. (lines 338-539). 

350. Wyvern. In heraldry a wyvern is a monster resembling 
a dragon. 

358. The Gate of the three Queens: Cf. Gareth and Lynette: 

" And there was no gate like it under heaven. 
For barefoot on the keystone, which was lined 
And rippled like an ever-fleeting wave, 
The Lady of the Lake stood : all her dress 
Wept from her sides as water flowing away; 
But like the cross her great and goodly arms 
Stretch'd under all the cornice and upheld: 
And drops of water fell from either hand; 
And down from one a sword was hung, from one 
A censer, ei^^her worn with wind and storm; 
And o'er her breast floated the sacred fish; 
And in the space to left of her, and right, 
Were Arthur's wars in weird devices done, 
New things and old co-twisted, as if Time 
Were nothing, so inveterately, that men 
Were giddy gazing there; and over all 
High on the top were those three Queens, the friends 
Of Arthur, who should help him at his need." 

361-457. Both Malory and Tennyson make the cause of failure 
of Percivale's quest his lack of humility. 

370-378. " Percivale starts full of joy in his own bravery, but, 
as he goes, Arthur's warning that his knights in this quest are 
following wandering fires occurs to him, and he drops down into 
despair. Then he sees a series of visions. A burning thirst con- 
sumes him; it is the symbol of the thirst for union with God." — 
Brooke, p. 333. 

380-390. " It is the symbol of the thirsty soul trying to find 
in the beauty of nature its true home, and failing." — Ibid., p. 334. 

401-420. " It is the symbol of the soul seeking to be satisfied 
with the glory of the earth, chiefly to be attained in war." — Ibid. 

421-450. "It is the symbol of the soul seeking to slake its thirst 



96 . NOTES 

by popular applause, and especially in the fame of a ruler of men, 
but all is thirst and desolation as before." — Ibid. 

453. Gray-haired wisdom of the East. Cf. Matt, ii., 1-9. 

" Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, of Judea, in the days 
of Herod the king, behold there came wise men from the east to 
Jerusalem, . . . and lo, the star which they saw in the east, went 
before them till it came and stood over where the young child was." 

462. Sacring of the 7nass. The consecration of the host in the 
mass, when the bread and wine according to the view of the 
Roman church, become transformed into the body and blood of 
Christ. 

509. Sons of God. " When the morning stars sang together, 
and all the sons of God shouted for joy." — Job xxxviii., 7. 

518-519. Boat . . . wings. Cf. the boat approaching over the 
mystic sea, in Dante's Purgatorio, with its holy pilot: 

" Appeared to me ... a light along the sea coming so swiftly 
that no flight equals its motion. . . . Again I saw it brighter 
become and larger. Then on each side of it appeared to me a 
something, I know not what, white, and beneath, little by little, 
another came forth from it. My Master still said not a \/ord, 
until the first white things showed themselves wings; then, when 
he clearly recognized the pilot, he cried out, ' Mind, mind thou 
bend thy knees. Lo, the Angel of God : fold thy hands ' . . . . See 
how he scorns human means, so that he wills not oar, or other 
sail than his own wings between such distant shores." — Norton's 
Dante, Pur., ii. 

526-530. The spiritual city. Reminiscent of the verse, — " And 
he carried me away in the spirit to a mountain great and high, 
and showed me the holy city Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven 
from God." — Revelations, xxi., 10. Cf. the celestial city in Para- 
dise Lost: 

" Far off the empyreal heaven, extended wide 
In circuit, undetermined square or round, 
With opal towers and battlements adorn'd 
Of living sapphire." 

This section shows Percivale on his quest, each thing as it comes 
to him turning into ashes, — the material delight of the brook and 
the apples, the pleasantness of domestic love, the plowman, the 
figure in golden armor, the old man in the ruins. For Percivale 



NOTES 97 

has been thinking of himself and his prowess, as the hermit points 
out, and so has been denied sight of the Grail, which must be sought 
in the spirit of true humility. Galahad, possessing humility, sees 
the Grail at the very moment that Percivale looking sees naught; 
but Galahad gives Percivale promise of the vision to come. The 
account of the vision (489-5.39), of that which is mystical in 
essence, is given in large, vague, splendid imagery, befitting the 
majesty of theidea^ — a series of pictures intentionally indeterminate. 

Section III. (lines .540-916). 

545-563. Tennyson presents an interesting contrast here in 
the monk Ambrosius, who does not follow glamorous visions, but 
spends a life of toil and piety in the care of the people in his village. 
It has a rich homely charm — this description of a small village and 
its people and its priest. 

545. Breviary. A book containing the prayers or offices of the 
church to be read at certain times. The Roman breviary is made 
up largely of the Psalms, passages of the Old and the New Testa- 
ment and the Christian Fathers, hymns, anthems, all in Latin, 
arranged for the various occasipns and festivities of the church. 

547. Thorpe. Village. 

558. Market-cross. A cross set up where a market is held. In 
England and Scotland most market-towns had a market cross. 

" Proclaim'd at market-crosses, read in churches." 

— / Henry iv., v, 1, 73. 

569. Eft. A newt. 

612. Yule. Refers to the Yule log which is burned at Christmas. 
The poor man must have his fire at Christmas even if he goes 
without it the rest of the year; or have small ones, is the thought 
of the context here. 

646. His former madness. See Malory, xi., 9, for an account 
of the madness during two years which fell upon Lancelot when 
he thought Guinevere angry with him on the supposition that he 
loved Elaine, daughter of King Pelles (not Elaine of Astolat). 
The Holy Grail cured Lancelot of his madness. 

661. Paynim amid their circles. Refers to such circles as Stone- 
henge, built by Druids, who were pagans. 

667. What other fire than he. Refers to the sun, worshipped by 
the Druids. 



98 NOTES 

681. The seven clear stars. The seven stars of the Great Bear, 
commonly called " the dipper." 

715-716. Basilisks, cockatrice, talhot. Heraldic devices. The 
basiUsk is a fabulous creature, in heraldry represented as an animal 
resembling a cockatrice, with its tail terminating in a dragon's 
head. Its breath and even its look were supposed to be fatal. 
The cockatrice is a fabulous monster reputed to be hatched by a 
serpent from a cock's egg. In heraldry it is represented as having 
the head, legs, and feet of a cock, a serpent's body or tail, and a 
dragon's wings. Talbot is a kind of dog; in heraldry represented 
as a mastiff. 

759. Of Cana. A reference to the miracle of turning water into 
wine at a marriage feast at Cana of Galilee. See John ii., 9-11. 

810. Carbcnek. " Then said they all that he was in the castle 
of Carbonek." — Malory, xvii., 16. This refers to Lancelot's 
inquiry as to where he was, after having lain four and twenty 
days as if dead. 

844. PalVd in crimson samite. Compare the different appear- 
ances and forms of the Holy Grail: Percivale's sister, 11. 116-118. 
Galahad, 11. 466, 473-476; Percivale, 1. 521; Bors, 11. 690-692, 

The material of this section is called forth by the question of 
Ambrosius as to what else besides phantoms Percivale saw on his 
quest. Its function is to round out the Idyll by telling what 
happened to the other knights — to Sir Bors, who saw the Grail; to 
Gawain, who did not see it; to Lancelot, who for his sin suffered 
madness and hardship, and saw the Holy ^G rail, if he saw it, veiled 
and covered. That Percivale met more than phantoms, that 
he met and girded himself against the temptation of the princess 
and her people who wished him to stay and be their ruler is told 
briefly. The inner cogency of the vow, as a safeguard against 
temptation, is twice referred to in this connection. The Idyll closes 
by recurring to the note of warning spoken by Arthur in the 
beginning, now justified, — for to only a few of the knights has the 
vision been granted; the others have followed wandering fires, 
and have missed the chance to do useful work at home, where 
they were needed. The structure of this Idyll is very simple, — 
an account of the Holy Grail and the knights who went to seek 
it, and what happened to them, developed by means of leading 
questions asked by the monk of the chief narrator. 



NOTES 99 

THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 
For the old story read Le Morte d' Arthur, Bk. xxi., 1-7. 
Section I. (1-239). 

"The first Idyll and the last, I have heard Mr. Tennyson say, are 
intentionally more archaic than the others." — Mrs. A. T. Ritchie. 
This is seen in the use of fixed epithets, as "the bold Sir Bedi- 
vere," "clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful "; in the mode 
of introducing speeches, as "Then spake the King"; "To him 
replied the bold Sir Bedivere"; and in archaic forms of words. 

26. The beast. See The Coming of Arthur, Notes, 11. 

28. / pass, but shall not die. The belief in a "second coming" 
(see 450) is found in the legends of many heroes, e.g., Charlemagne 
and Barbarossa. Malory writes (xxi, 7) : 

"Yet some men say in many parts of England that King Arthur 
is not dead, but had by the will of our Lord Jesu into another 
place; and men say that he shall come again, and he shall win 
the holy cross. I will not say it shall be so, but rather I will say, 
here in this world he changed his life. But many men say that 
there is written upon his tomb this verse: Hie jacet Arthurus rex, 
quondam Rex que futurus." 

30. Gawain. See The Coming of Arthur, Notes, 243, There is, 
perhaps, a poetical irony in making Gawain, who is represented 
by Tennyson as always seeking the pleasant paths of life, proclaim: 

"HoUow, hollow, all delight!" 

35. An isle of rest. See The Coming of Arthur, Notes, 43. 

59. Modred. See The Coming of Arthur, Notes, 243. For a 
full characterization of him and his perfidy, see Guinevere, 24flf. 

77. One lying in the dust at Almesbury. Guinevere had fled to 
the nuns of the abbey of Almesbury after Modred's spreading 
of the scandal. Almesbury is near Salisbury. The ruins of the 
abbey are still pointed out. 

81. Lyonnesse. A mythical region, supposed to be the exten- 
sion of Cornwall, now covered by forty fathoms of water, between 
Land's End and the Scilly Isles. 

95. This last dim battle in the west should be compared with 



100 NOTES 

the joyous song of the knights at the close of The Coming of 
Arthur, 481-501. 

170. With this hne the Morte d' Arthur, written in 1842, begins. 

178. Strait, a narrow strip of land. 

199. Samite. See The Passing of Arthur, Notes, 284. 

206. Lightly, quickly, nimbly. 

The passage in Mallory is as follows: 

"'Therefore,' said Arthur, 'take thou my good sword Excalibur, 
and go with it to yonder water-side. And when thou comest there, 
I charge thee throw my sword in that water and come again and 
tell me what thou there seest.' 'My lord,' said Bedivere, 'your 
commandment shall be done, and lightly will I bring you word 
again.' So Sir Bedivere departed, and by the way he held that 
noble sword, that the pommel and the haft was all of precious 
stones, and then he said to himself, 'If I throw this rich sword in 
the water, thereof shall never come good, but harm and loss.' 
And then Sir Bedivere hid Excalibur under a tree." 

"In the poem the bare statement, 'So Sir Bedivere departed,' 
is expanded into a beautiful picture. He steps 

'Athwart the place of tombs. 
Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men. 
Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang 
Shrill, chill.' 

"We see nim passing by 'zig-zag paths, and juts of pointed 
rock,' till he comes to 'the shining levels of the lake.' The line 
which simply tells how 'the pommel and the haft were of precious 
stone' reappears as: 

'AH the haft twinkled with diamond sparks, 
Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work 
Of subtlest jewellery;' 

and the effect is still more heightened by their being seen in the 
light 'of the winter moon, Brightening the skirts of a long cloud.' 
The 'under a tree' becomes 

' The many-knotted water-flags 
That whistled stiff and dry about the marge.' 



NOTES 101 

A few lines further on, the sentence 'I saw nothing but the waters 
wap and the waves wan,' is transmuted into two hues containing 
two of the finest onomatopoeic effects in our language: 

'I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, 
And the wild water lapping on the crag.'" 
— Churton Collins: "Illustrations of Tennyson," p. 154. 

224. Haft, handle. 

225. Jacinth = hyacinth. Among the ancients, a gem supposed 
to be sapphire. In modern usage a gem of reddish orange color. 
Some varieties of garnet and topaz also receive this name (Century 
Dictionary). 

226. Subtlest jewellery, finely or exquisitely wrought in intricate 
design. 

Section II. (240-469). 

248. Lief, beloved. 

301-315. Compare in detail Tennyson's and Malory's version 
of this incident, and note what Tennyson has added. 

"Then Sir Bedivere departed and went to the sword, and lightly 
took it up and went to the water-side, and then he bound the 
girdle about the hilts, and then he threw the sword as far into the 
water as he might, and there came an arm and a hand above the 
water, and met it and caught it, and so shook it thrice and bran- 
ished, and then vanished away the hand with the sword in the 
water." 

349-360. Notice the description in these lines. 

366. Three Queens. See The Coming of Arthur, 270-278. 

401. See Matthew ii. 2, 3. 

411. Malory's version is: "Comfort thyself," said the king, "and 
do as well as thou may est, for in me is no trust to trust in. For 
I will enter the vale of Avilion to heal me of my grievous wound; 
and if thou hear never more of me, pray for my soul." 

423. The idea of the earth being bound to heaven by chains 
of gold is to be found in Homer, Iliad, viii., 256. It occurs also 
in Plato's Thcetetus, ch. iii., 10; and in Bacon's Advancement of 
Learning. 

435. The notion that the swan sings just before its death is 
of wide popular belief, but is in reality without foundation. "I 
will play the swan and die in music" {Othello). Mr. Nichol says 



102 NOTES 

of the Cygnus musicus, "Its note resembles the tones of a violin, 
though somewhat higher. Each note occurs after a long interval. 
The music presages a thaw in Iceland, and hence one of its greatest 
charms." 

445. See The Coming of Arthur, 140. 

455. See The Coming of Arthur, 275. 

TO THE QUEEN 

The edition of 1872-73 of the Poems had this dedication inserted. 

3. That rememorable day. Refers to the great public Thanks- 
giving to celebrate the recovery of the Prince of Wales (Edward 
VII) from a critical case of typhoid fever. 

12. Thunderless lightnings. Messages by cable. 

14. That true North. Refers to the question of the separation 
of Canada from the Empire, then under discussion. 

20. Hougoumont. A chateau on the battlefield of Waterloo, 
hence figuratively Waterloo. 

56. Stol'n from France. Tennyson was out of sympathy with 
the extremes of French art, which he regarded as pernicious. 



Longmans' English Classics 

Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems. 

Edited by Ashley H. Thorndike, Professor of English in 
Columbia University. $0.25. [For Reading] 
Browning's Select Poems. 

Edited by Percival Chubb, formerly Director of English, 
Ethical Culture School, New York. I0.25. [For Reading.] 
Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. 

Edited by Charles Sears Baldwin, Professor of Rhetoric in 
' Columbia University. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America. 

Edited by Albert S. Cook, Professor of English Language 
and Literature, Yale Univ. $0.25. [For Study.] 
Byron's Childe Harold, Canto IV, and Prisoner of Chillon. 
Edited by H. E. Coblentz, Principal of The South Division 
High School, Milwaukee, Wis. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
Carlyle's Essay on Burns, with Selections from Burns's 
Poems. 

Edited by Wilson Farrand, Head Master of the Newark 
Academy, Newark, N. J. $0.25. [For Study.] 
Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, Christabel and Kubia Khan. 
Edited by Herbert Bates, Brooklyn Manual Training High 
School, New York. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans. 

Edited by Charles F. Richardson, Professor of English in 
Dartmouth College. $0.30. [For Reading.] 
Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. 

Edited by Frederick William Roe, Assistant Professor of Eng- 
lish, Univ. of Wisconsin. $0.30. [For Reading.] 
Eliot's Silas Marner. 

Edited by Robert Herrick, Professor of Rhetoric, University 
of Chicago. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
Emerson's Essays on Manners, Self=reliance, etc. 

Edited by Eunice J. Cleveland. I0.25. [For Study.] 
Franklin's Autobiography 

Edited by W. B. Cairns, Ass't Professor of American Literature, 
Univ. of Wisconsin, fo.25. [For Reading.] 
Gaskell's Cranford. 

Edited by Franklin T. Baker, Professor of the English Lan- 
guage and Literature in Teachers College, Columbia University. 
$0.25. [For Reading.] 
Goldsmith's The Traveller and The Deserted Village. 

Edited by J. F. Hosic, Head of the Department of English, 
Chicago Normal School. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield. 

Edited by Mary A. Jordan, Professor of English Language 
and Literature, Smith College. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
Huxley's Autobiography and Selections from Lay Sermons. 
Edited by E. H. Kemper McComb, Manual Training High 
School, Indianapolis, Ind. $0.25. [For Reading.] 



Longmans' English Classics 



Irving's Life of Goldsmith. 

Edited by L. B. Semple, Instructor in English, Bushwick 
High School, Brooklyn, N. Y. $0.30. [For Reading.] 
Irving's Sketch Bool<. 

With an Introduction by Brander Matthews, Professor of 
Dramatic Literature, Columbia University, and with notes 
by Armour Caldwell. $0.30. [For Reading.] 
Lincoln, Selections from. 

Edited by Daniel K. Dodge, Professor of English in the Uni- 
versity of Illinois. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
Lowell's Vision of Sir Launfal, and Other Poems. 

Edited by Allan Abbott, Department of English, Horace Mann 
High School, New York City. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
Macaulay's Essay on Addison. 

Edited by James Greenleaf Croswell, Head Master of the 
Brearley School, New York. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
Macaulay's Essay on Lord Clive. 

Edited by P. C. Farrar, Instructor of English in Erasmus 
Hall High School, Brooklyn, N. Y. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
Macaulay's Essay on Milton. 

Edited by James Greenleaf Croswell, Head Master of the 
Brearley School, New York. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome, and Other Poems. 

Edited by Nott FHnt, late Instructor in English in the Uni- 
versity of Chicago. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
Macaulay's Life of Samuel Johnson. 

Edited by Huber Gray Buehler, Head Master, Hotchkiss 
School, Lakeville, Conn. $0.25. [For Study.] 
Macaulay's Johnson and Addison. 

1. Life of Samuel Johnson, edited by Huber Gray Buehler, 
Hotchkiss School. [For Study.] 

2. Addison, edited by James Greenleaf Croswell, Brear- 
ley School. $0.40. [For Reading.] 

Macaulay's Speech on Copyright and Lincoln's Speech at 
Cooper Union. 

Edited by Dudley H. Miles, Head, Department of English, 
Evander Childs High School, New York City. $0.25. [For Study.] 
Macaulay's Warren Hastings. 

Edited by Samuel M. Tucker, Professor of English, Brook- 
lyn Polytechnic Institute. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
Milton's L'Allegro, II Penseroso, Comus and Lycidas. 

Edited by William P. Trent, Professor of English Litera- 
ture in Columbia University. I0.25. [For Study, either "Lyci- 
das" or "Comus" to be omitted.] 
Palgrave's The Golden Treasury. 

Edited by Herbert Bates, Manual Training High School, 
Brooklyn, N. Y. $0.30. [For Study and Reading.] 
Parkman's The Oregon Trail. 

Edited by O. B. Sperlin, Tacoma High School, Washing- 
ton. $0.30, [For Reading.) 



Longma7is^ English Classics 



Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies. 

Edited by Gertrude Buck, Professor of English in Vassar 
College. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
Scott's Ivanhoe. 

Edited by Bliss Perry, Professor of English Literature in 
Harvard University. $0.30. [For Reading.] 
Scott's Lady of the Lake. 

Edited by G. R. Carpenter. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
Scott's Marmion. 

Edited by Robert Morss Lovett, Professor of English in the 
University of Chicago. $0.30. [For Reading.] 
Scott's Quentin Durward. 

Edited by Mary E. Adams, Head of the Department of Eng- 
lish in the Central High School, Cleveland, O. 5o-30- [For 
Reading.] 
Scott's Woodstock. 

Edited by Bliss Perry, Professor of English Literature in 
Harvard University. $0.40. [For Reading.] 
Shakspere's A Midsummer Night's Dream. 

Edited by George Pierce Baker, Professor of English in Har- 
vard University. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
Shakspere's As You Like It. 

With an Introduction by Barrett Wendell, Professor of Eng- 
lish in Harvard University; and Notes by William Lyon Phelps, 
Lampson Professor of English Literature in Yale University. 
$0.25. [For Reading.] 
Shakspere's Hamlet. 

Edited by David T. Pottinger, Teacher of English, Thayer 
Academy, South Braintree, Mass. $0.25. [For Study or 
Reading.] 
Shakspere's Julius Caesar. 

Edited by George C. D. Odell, Professor of English in Co- 
lumbia University. $0.25. [For Study or Reading.] 
Shakspere's King Henry V. 

Edited by George C. D. Odell, Professor of English in Co- 
lumbia University. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
Shakspere's Macbeth. 

Edited by John Matthews Manly, Professor and Head of 
the Department of English in the University of Chicago. $0.25. 
[For Study or Reading.] 
Shakspere's The Merchant of Venice. 

Edited by Francis B. Gummere, Professor of English Literature 
in Haverford College. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
Shakspere's Twelfth Night. 

Edited by J. B. Henneman, late Professor of English, Uni- 
versity of the South. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
Southey's Life of Nelson. 

Edited by E. L. Miller, Head, English Department, Central 
High School, Detroit, Mich. $0.30. [For Reading,] 



Longmayis^ English Classics 



Stevenson's Treasure Island. 

Edited by Clayton Hamilton, Extension Lecturer in Eng- 
lish, Columbia University. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
Tennyson's Qareth and Lynette, Launcelot and Elaine, Tha 
Passing of Arthur. 

Edited by Sophie C. Hart, Professor of Rhetoric in Wellesley 
College. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
Tennyson's The Coming of Arthur, The Holy Qrail and The 
Passing of Arthur. 

Edited by Sophie C. Hart. $0.25. [For Study.] 
Tennyson's The Princess. 

Edited by G. E. Woodberry, formerly Prof, of Comparative 
Literature, Columbia Univ. $0.25. [For Reading.] 
The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers. 

Edited by D. O. S. Lowell, Head Master of the Roxbury Latin 
School, Boston, Mass. $0.25. [For Reading.] 

Thoreau's Walden. 

Edited by Raymond M. Alden, Professor of English, Uni- 
versity of Illinois. $0.30. [For Reading.] 
Washington's Farewell Address and Webster's First Bunker 
Hill Oration. 

Edited by Fred Newton Scott, Professor of Rhetoric in the 
University of Michigan. $0.25. [For Study.] 



Carlyle's Heroes, Hero=Worship, and the Heroic in History. 

Edited by Henry David Gray, Assistant Professor of English, 
Leland Stanford Jr. University. $0.30. 
De Quincey's Flight of a Tartar Tribe. 

Edited by Charles Sears Baldwin, Professor of Rhetoric in 
Columbia University. $0.40. 
De Quincey's Joan of Arc and The English Mail Coach. 

Edited by Charles Sears Baldwin. $0.25. 
Dryden's Palamon and Arcite. 

Edited by William Tenney Brewster, Professor of English in 
Columbia University. $0.40. 
Irving's Tales of a Traveller. 

With an Introduction by Brander Matthews and Explanatory 
Notes by George R. Carpenter. $0.40. 
Milton's Paradise Lost. Books \. and H. 

Edited by Edward Everett Hale, Jr., Professor of the English 
Language and Literature in Union College. $0.40. 
Pope's Homer's Iliad. Books I., VI., XXII. and XXIV. 
Edited by William H. Maxwell, Superintendent of New York 
City Schools, and Percival Chubb, formerly Director of English, 
Ethical Culture School, New York. $0.40. 
Spenser's The Faerie Queene. (Selections.) 

Edited by John Erskine, Professor of English in Columbia 
University. $0.25. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




